PERSONALTRAITS  OF 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

HELEN  NICOLAY 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 
HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  OF 
ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 


PERSONAL   TRAITS   OF 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


BY 
HELEN  NICOLAY 


NEW  YORK 
THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1913 


Copyright,  1912,  by 
THE  CENTUBY  Co. 


Published,  October,  1912 


'     0#f» 


PREFACE 

WHEN  my  father  began  collecting 
material  to  be  used  in  his  joint 
work  with  John  Hay,  "  Abraham  Lincoln : 
A  History,"  he  put  certain  things  into  an 
envelope  marked  "  Personal  Traits,"  mean- 
ing to  make  a  chapter  with  that  heading. 
As  the  work  grew  the  items  gathered 
under  that  head  overflowed  from  one 
envelope  into  many ;  and  at  the  same  time 
it  became  manifest  that  a  chapter  with 
such  a  title  would  be  out  of  place.  Inci- 
dents illustrating  Mr.  Lincoln's  personal 
traits  found  their  rightful  place  elsewhere ; 
and  the  authors  argued  that  if  the  work 
as  a  whole  did  not  reflect  his  character,  it 
was  labor  lost. 


PREFACE 

The  envelopes,  bursting  with  their  load, 
were  put  aside.  My  father  meant  at  some 
future  time,  to  make  of  the  material  thus 
collected,  a  smaller  and  more  intimate  vol- 
ume. More  pressing  literary  tasks,  and 
failing  health,  interfered. 

Unfortunately,  first-hand  knowledge, 
that  could  take  those  miscellaneous  notes, 
personal  jottings,  private  letters,  and 
newspaper  clippings,  unrelated  as  the  col- 
ors on  a  painter's  palette,  and  blend  them 
into  an  absolutely  satisfactory  portrait, 
is  not  a  kind  of  knowledge  to  be  in- 
herited —  even  by  a  daughter  who  grew 
up  in  an  atmosphere  of  devotion  to  Lin- 
coln, and  who,  even  in  childhood  was  ac- 
corded the  privilege  of  helping,  in  so  far 
as  she  was  able,  with  the  details  of  the 
"  History." 

That  experience,  however,  seems  to  put 
upon  her  a  certain  obligation  to  use  these 


PREFACE 

notes,  while  it  does  not  lessen  her  sense  of 
the  perils  of  the  task.  It  is  a  case,  indeed, 
where  duty  and  something  very  like  pre- 
sumption go  hand  in  hand. 

She  wishes  to  make  acknowledgment  to 
Mr.  Robert  Lincoln  for  his  personal  kind- 
ness in  help  and  advice;  and  also  to  the 
authors  whose  painstaking  research  has 
brought  to  light  new  letters  and  material 
since  "  Abraham  Lincoln :  A  History,"  was 
published. 

Washington,  D.  C.» 
May  31,  1912. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I  THE  MAN  AND  His  NATURE    ...  3 

II  LINCOLN'S  ANECDOTES  AND  SIMILES   .  12 

III  His  DEVELOPING  POWER 36 

IV  THE  STABT  IN  LIFE 63 

V  THE  EIGHTH  JUDICIAL  CIRCUIT     .     .  79 

VI  LINCOLN'S   ATTITUDE   TOWARD  MONEY     97 

VII  A  NEW  CANDIDATE 117 

VIII  THE  CAMPAIGN  SUMMER     ....   134 

IX  THE  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON     .     .  151 

X      EVERY-DAY  LlFE  AT  THE  WHITE   HOUSE    173 

XI     PRESIDENT   LINCOLN,    His   WIFE   AND 

CHILDREN 198 

XII    THOSE  IN  AUTHORITY 234 

XIII  DAILY    RECEPTIONS    OF    THE     PLAIN 

PEOPLE 257 

XIV  THE       MEMORANDUM       OF       AUGUST 

TWENTY-THIRD        289 

XV    His  FORGIVING  SPIRIT 315 

XVI     His  REASON  AND  His  HEART  .     .     .  337 

XVII    LINCOLN  THE  WRITER 359 

XVIII    His  MOJLAL  FIBER 377 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

Party  accompanying  Lincoln  on  the  Journey 
from  Springfield  to  Washington  ....  154 

Handbill  used  on  Lincoln's  Journey  to  Wash- 
ington   168 

Autograph  Text  of  Address  to  Foreign  En- 
voys   176 

-  President's  Note  about  a  Post-office  Appoint- 
ment, with  Montgomery  Blair's  Endorsement  186 

Two  Characteristic  Endorsements,  and  a  Call 
to  a  Special  Cabinet  Meeting  ....  190 

A  Presidential  Tea  Party 206 

Autograph  Text  of  Lincoln's  Rebuke  to  His 
Cabinet 240 

Memorandum  across  back  of  which  Lincoln 
asked  his  Cabinet  to  write  their  names,  but 
whose  Contents  he  did  not  show  them  until 
after  his  reelection  .  312 


PERSONAL  TRAITS  OF 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


THE    MAN,    AND    HIS    NATURE 

TO  make  claim  of  superhuman  good- 
ness or  wisdom  or  ability  for 
Abraham  Lincoln  is  to  belittle  him  —  to 
detract  from  the  dignity  of  his  life  and 
the  inspiration  of  his  example.  The  rea- 
son his  name  is  on  every  lip,  and  that  the 
sound  of  it  warms  every  heart,  is  that  he 
was  so  human,  yet  lived  on  a  higher  plane 
than  his  fellows.  That  he  freed  an  en- 
slaved race  and  brought  a  long  and  bitter 
war  to  an  end,  is  impressive,  but  not  vital 
to  his  greatness.  The  fact  that  counts,  is 
that  he  passed  through  every  stage  of  his 
8 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

marvelous  career,  from  laboring  man  to 
ruler  with  more  than  imperial  power,  se- 
renely constant  to  one  inflexible  standard 
of  right  —  never  arrogant  and  never 
abashed,  just  in  act,  and  in  sympathy  a 
brother  to  mankind. 

Some  men,  born  with  the  gift  of 
wit,  lack  judgment,  or  persistent  energy. 
Others,  dowered  with  unusual  sagacity,  are 
hampered  by  a  cold  earnestness  which  re- 
pels confidence.  Still  others,  afflicted  with 
blind  unreasoning  energy,  blunder  per- 
petually into  destructive  acts  of  courage 
and  daring.  Lincoln  had  these  qualities  in 
happy  combination:  wit  to  attract  and 
hold  men,  logical  sense  and  clear  vision  to 
plan  methodical  action;  and,  best  of  all, 
that  high  courage  which,  when  the  golden 
moment  came,  inspired  him  to  bold  and 
fearless  action,  regardless  of  what  others 
thought  and  careless  of  consequences  to 
himself. 

4 


THE   MAN   AND   HIS   NATURE 

To  study  his  character  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  dig  at  the  tap-root  of  his  family 
tree.  It  is  unimportant  whether  his  ulti- 
mate ancestor  was  a  baron  who  lived  by 
robbery,  or  a  serf  yielding  his  oppressor 
unwilling  tribute  of  sweat  and  blood.  To 
invent  him  a  proper  blazon  we  need  only 
cross  the  ax  of  the  pioneer  with  the  mace, 
the  symbol  of  delegated  authority.  In 
blood  and  brain,  ambition  and  achievement, 
he  was  one  with  the  men  who  in  a  single 
century  carried  American  civilization  from 
the  slopes  of  the  Alleghanies  to  the  beaches 
of  our  Pacific  coast.  His  grandfather 
was  killed  by  savages.  He  himself  bore 
arms  in  the  last  Indian  war  of  northern 
Illinois. 

Born  in  a  Kentucky  log  cabin,  reared  in 
an  Indiana  frontier  settlement,  beginning 
life  on  his  own  account  in  an  Illinois  vil- 
lage scarcely  less  primitive,  he  moved  with 
the  tide  of  onward  progress,  not  as  a  piece 
of  driftwood  helplessly  tossed  by  capri- 
5 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

cious  waves,  but  as  the  pilot  of  his  self- 
built  craft,  swayed  indeed,  now  and  then, 
by  adverse  currents,  but  planning  his  own 
course,  and  making  port  with  the  precision 
born  of  rudder  and  compass. 

In  the  inscrutable  ways  of  Providence  it 
came  about  that  when  this  man  was  fifty 
years  old  his  self-made  craft  became  sud- 
denly the  ship  of  State,  and  his  hand  on  the 
helm  the  deciding  factor  in  the  lives  of 
thirty-one  millions  of  his  fellow-country- 
men. 

It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  only  in 
America  could  such  things  be.  Abraham 
Lincoln  is  not  explained  so  easily.  He 
was  not  alone  the  product  of  a  new  land, 
but  of  the  ages.  Physically  a  wonderful 
organ,  mentally  a  wonderful  instrument, 
he  was  played  upon  by  all  the  wonderful 
influences  of  our  new  continent  —  by  the 
God-given  freshness  of  the  prairies,  and 
the  mystery  of  primeval  forests  shadow- 
ing secrets  of  an  aboriginal  race  —  also 
6 


THE   MAN   AND   HIS   NATURE 

by  Spartan  fortitude,  Roman  law,  and 
Christian  charity,  gathered  in  remote  days 
by  European  forebears,  and  brought  across 
the  sea  to  flower  in  him  under  the  clear 
light  of  a  sun  as  yet  undimmed  by  the 
miasma  of  civilization.  And  with  all  this 
background  it  took  more  than  average 
human  experiences  to  make  him  what  he 
became. 

Intellectually  his  life  divides  itself  into 
three  periods.  The  first,  of  about  forty 
years,  beginning  in  the  backwoods  cabin, 
ended  with  the  close  of  his  term  in  Con- 
gress. The  second,  of  about  ten  years, 
concluded  with  his  nomination  to  the  Presi- 
dency. The  third,  of  about  five  years, 
terminated  at  his  death.  Had  he  been 
called  upon  to  exercise  the  duties  of  Presi- 
dent at  the  end  of  the  first  period,  he  would 
not  have  disgraced  the  office,  but  the  school- 
ing which  followed  was  necessary,  even 
with  his  unusual  gifts,  to  the  fulfilment  of 
his  destiny,  and  the  lasting  good  of  the 
7 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

American  people.  "  First  the  blade,  then 
the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear." 
His  life  was  an  orderly  development,  each 
achievement  preparing  the  way  for  the  one 
to  come. 

In  the  first  period  he  grew,  as  hundreds 
of  his  contemporaries  grew,  from  nothing 
in  wisdom  and  worldly  possessions,  to  an 
honorable  place  in  the  material  and  mental 
life  of  his  time.  It  was  the  season  of  his 
personal  growth.  In  the  second  he  put  a 
moral  question  before  the  people  in  terms 
so  ringing  that  they  had  to  listen.  With- 
out conscious  will  on  his  part,  but  as 
inevitably  as  the  magnet  draws  to  itself  a 
following,  he  became  in  those  years  a  leader 
of  men,  merged  his  individuality  in  that  of 
a  cause,  and  became  the  champion  of  a 
great  idea.  In  the  third  period,  when 
events  crowded  so  thickly  that  the  half- 
century  he  had  already  lived  seemed  but  a 
short  time  compared  to  the  days  and  weeks 
of  his  Presidency,  he  was  called  upon  to 
8 


THE   MAN  AND   HIS  NATURE 

put  his  championship  to  the  test  —  to  lead 
his  followers  through  doubt  and  tribula- 
tion, and  finally  to  lay  down  his  life  for  the 
faith  that  was  in  him. 

History  dwells  on  the  fact  that  this  man, 
who  began  so  humbly  and  traveled  so  far, 
had  only  one  scant  year  of  schooling;  and 
it  treasures,  rightly  enough,  a  few  leaves 
from  his  copy-book,  and  one  or  two  doggerel 
verses  as  precious  relics.  Of  the  teachers 
who  walked  with  him  all  the  days  of  his 
youth,  it  says  little.  Yet  poverty  taught 
him  the  value  of  industry,  of  skill,  of  repu- 
tation. Labor  taught  him,  better  than 
books  could  do,  his  individual  right  to  the 
fruits  of  his  individual  toil.  Another  great 
teacher  was  solitude,  in  whose  still  places 
he  learned  to  think  —  to  measure  his  pow- 
ers, and  take  counsel  of  his  own  mind  and 
heart. 

But  even  taking  into  account  all  these, 
we  know  practically  nothing  of  how  he  edu- 
cated himself,  or  why.  The  force  which 
9 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

moves  the  grain  of  wheat  to  activity  re- 
mains ever  a  mystery.  We  only  know  that 
a  miracle  was  wrought,  and  that  by  the 
time  this  pioneer  boy  reached  manhood  the 
cast  of  mind  as  well  as  of  body,  the  tricks 
of  speech,  and  the  spaciousness  of  soul, 
had  developed,  that  remained  with  him  to 
the  end. 

A  man  of  many  moods  but  great  single- 
ness of  aim,  he  was  complex,  yet  of  a 
strange  simplicity.  So  natural  in  manner, 
so  free  from  arrogance  and  assumption  of 
power,  that  some  could  not  see  how  grandly 
he  towered  above  them.  Unable  to  believe 
that  one  so  placed  could  have  come  through 
the  fires  of  life  unscathed,  they  read  into 
his  acts  subtleties  and  meanings  which  were 
not  there;  for,  with  the  knowledge  of  a 
world-wise  man,  he  kept  the  heart  of 
a  child.  Humble-minded,  he  was  confident 
of  his  own  powers.  Intensely  practical,  he 
was  dowered  with  a  poet's  vision,  and 
a  poet's  capacity  for  pain.  Keen,  analyt- 
10 


THE   MAN  AND  HIS  NATURE 

ical,  absolutely  just,  he  was  affectionate  — 
and  tender-hearted  almost  to  the  verge  of 
unreason.  Fond  of  merriment,  he  was  one 
of  the  saddest  men  who  ever  lived. 

Some,  seeing  only  one  side  of  his  char- 
acter, and  some  another,  doubted  and  mis- 
judged him.  Though  those  nearest  him 
were  the  ones  who  loved  him  best,  even  they 
hardly  realized  the  measure  of  his  great- 
ness. Time  had  to  demonstrate  the  con- 
summate wisdom  of  his  acts,  truth  had  to 
unearth  hidden  facts,  and  men  and  women 
who  casually  judged  him  and  passed  on 
had  each  to  bring  a  little  tribute  of  praise 
or  blame  before  the  world  could  see  how  the 
varied  and  apparently  contradictory  ele- 
ments in  Lincoln's  nature  —  sadness  and 
gaiety,  justice,  logic  and  mercy,  humility 
and  assurance  —  combined  in  one  genial, 
luminous  whole;  just  as  conflicting  colors 
of  the  spectrum  fuse  together  into  strong 
white  light. 


11 


II 

LINCOLN'S  ANECDOTES  AND  SIMILES 

JUST  as  white  light,  broken  into  com- 
ponent parts,  dazzles  an  untrained 
eye  with  reds  and  yellows,  to  the  exclusion 
of  violets  and  indigo,  without  which  the 
gaudier  colors  are  only  disturbing  factors, 
popular  estimate  has  laid  too  much  stress 
on  one  of  the  least  of  Lincoln's  qualities  — 
his  story-telling  power;  if  indeed,  it  was  a 
quality,  and  not  the  result  of  a  quality  — 
an  effect,  not  a  cause.  That  he  was  a 
royal  story-teller  there  is  no  doubt,  but 
legend  and  popular  fancy  have  combined  to 
distort  the  measure  and  the  reason  of  his 
gift. 

Sorrow  and  hardship  darkened  the  ear- 
12 


ANECDOTES 

liest  years  of  his  childhood,  but  .his  was  a 
gay  and  happy  nature  by  right  of  birth. 
As  a  boy  he  loved  a  story  for  the  pure  fun 
in  it;  and,  since  he  was  human,  liked  to 
tell  one,  because  in  those  pioneer  times  of 
few  amusements  and  almost  no  books,  the 
exercise  of  the  faculty  carried  with  it  pop- 
ularity, even  more  than  it  does  to-day. 
^Esop's  "  Fables,"  one  of  the  few  books 
that  fell  into  his  hands,  was  a  mine  of 
wealth  to  such  a  lad,  and  a  formative  in- 
fluence as  well. 

Grown  to  manhood,  he  faced  juries  by 
day,  or  appeared  after  nightfall  before 
scanty  groups  of  settlers,  gathered  solemn 
and  expectant  in  dimly  lighted  log  cabins 
to  hear  his  views  on  State  politics  or  Na- 
tional tariff  or  internal  improvement.  In 
such  conditions  the  power  of  a  story  to 
rivet  attention  or  illuminate  the  dismal  sur- 
roundings was  not  to  be  thrown  away. 
Later  in  his  career  he  used  anecdotes  with 
telling  effect  to  clinch  an  argument,  or 
13 


* 
ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

good-humoredly  turn  away  a  bore.  In  the 
stress  of  his  Presidency  they  became  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  tide  over  the  despond- 
ency of  bloody,  bitter  days. 

That  he  could  not  have  told  humorous 
tales  with  the  frequency  rumor  indicates,  is 
self-evident.  Had  he  done  so  there  would 
have  been  no  time  to  carry  on  the  war.  He 
himself  disclaimed  responsibility  for  more 
than  one-sixth  of  those  attributed  to  him, 
adding  modestly  that  he  was  "  only  a  retail 
dealer,"  who  remembered  a  good  story 
when  he  heard  it.  In  spite  of  which,  most 
of  the  tales  invented  since  the  days  of 
Abraham  the  patriarch  have  been  laid  to 
his  door. 

The  proof  of  his  skill  in  telling  them 
lies  in  the  avidity  with  which  people  lis- 
tened for  and  talked  about  them,  either  in 
criticism  or  praise.  For  of  course  there 
were  good  unimaginative  men  who  could 
not  see  beyond  a  story  to  the  application 
14 


ANECDOTES 

of  it,  and  who  failed  entirely  to  grasp  the 
reason  for  its  telling.  To  these  he  seemed 
to  be  occupying  his-  mind  with  frothy 
nothings  while  the  country  was  in  extremis 

—  a  sort  of  nineteenth-century  Nero,  with- 
out even  the  dignity  of  Nero's  music  and 
malice. 

Some  went  so  far  as  to  remonstrate  with 
him  for  his  levity.  They  could  not  see 
that,  tortured  almost  beyond  endurance  by 
the  responsibility  and  the  horror  of  the 
war,  he  was  telling  stories  for  a  purpose 

—  reaching    out    instinctively    for    some- 
thing to  turn  the  current  of  his  thoughts 
even  a  moment,  in  order  that  he  might  get 
a  firmer  grasp  again,  and  a  saner  outlook 
upon  life. 

"  If  it  were  not  for  this  occasional  vent 
I  should  die,"  he  told  a  scandalized  and 
protesting  congressman.  Then,  seeing 
that  his  visitor,  who  had  come  on  a  serious 
errand,  was  really  hurt,  he  lapsed  with 
15 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

characteristic  suddenness  into  his  patient 
gravity,  and  began  discussing  the  matter 
in  hand. 

These  quick  transitions  from  grave  to 
gay  were  a  constant  source  of  wonder  to 
his  friends.  He  seemed  so  possessed  with 
merriment  while  it  lasted,  and  put  it 
aside  so  quickly.  Laughter  was  to  him  a 
stimulant,  and  an  aid  to  work.  In  a  lec- 
ture, written  years  before,  he  defined  it  as 
the  "joyous,  universal  evergreen  of  life." 
An  pld  Springfield  friend,  hearing  it  ring 
out  in  the  White  House  against  the  lurid 
background  of  war,  called  it,  with  sudden 
deep  insight,  "  the  President's  life-pre- 
server." 

This  laugh  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  was  one 
secret  of  his  power  as  a  story-teller.  His 
own  enjoyment  was  so  genuine,  his  realiza- 
tion of  a  situation  so  keen,  that  it  exer- 
cised a  power  almost  hypnotic  over  his 
hearers.  Even  the  dullest  saw  the  scene 
as  he  did  while  he  was  describing  it,  his 
16 


ANECDOTES 

expressive  face  showing  every  emotion  in 
turn.  Then  when  the  climax  was  reached 
he  would  lead  the  laughter  with  a  hearti- 
ness that  seemed  to  convulse  his  whole 
body.  Yet  a  moment  later  the  merriment 
died  out  of  his  eyes,  lines  of  care  descended 
again  like  a  gray  veil  over  his  face,  and 
sad  and  weary,  he  took  up  his  burden. 

Such  moments  of  relaxation  were  liter- 
ally snatched  from  toil.  No  man  worked 
harder  or  had  longer  hours  than  he.  It 
was  the  constant  endeavor  of  his  secretaries 
to  compress  his  working  day  within  reason- 
able limits  —  and  his  constant  practice,  in 
the  kindness  of  his  great  heart,  to  break 
through  rules  he  admitted  ought  to  be 
kept,  and  to  see  people  morning,  noon,  and 
night.  Importunate  visitors  sometimes 
forced  their  way  into  his  very  bedroom, 
and  neither  midnight  nor  early  dawn  was 
free  from  prearranged  interviews.  Thus 
care  was  always  with  him;  he  was  never 
allowed  to  forget,  even  had  his  been  a 
17 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

nature  to  forget,  that  there  was  a  great 
war  raging  in  the  land,  and  that  he,  more 
than  any  one  else,  was  held  accountable  for 
its  course  and  final  outcome. 

Those  who  heard  him  tell  his  stories  are 
fast  passing  away.  Which  of  the  many 
attributed  to  him  are  of  the  one-sixth  he 
really  told,  and  which  of  the  five-sixths  he 
did  not  tell,  is  in  some  cases  already  im- 
possible to  determine.  Some  are  vouched 
for  by  unimpeachable  authority ;  some  bear 
internal  evidence  of  untruth.  Careful 
search  has  brought  to  light  less  than  a 
hundred  that  seem  likely  to  be  genuine. 
Even  if  he  told  all  these  and  as  many  more, 
the  number  would  be  a  small  one,  to  ac- 
count for  such  a  reputation. 

Concerning  the  quality  of  his  stories, 
certain  facts  stand  out.  They  were  al- 
ways short.  Lincoln's  worst  enemy  never 
accused  him  of  telling  a  long  story.  And 
they  never  lacked  point.  A  third  charac- 
teristic is  that  he  always  took  his  illustra- 
18 


ANECDOTES 

tions  from  a  life  with  which  he  was  fa- 
miliar. As  he  expressed  it,  he  "  did  not 
care  to  quarry  among  the  ancients  for  his 
figures."  The  life  in  which  he  grew  up, 
the  life  of  pioneer  times,  and  of  the  small 
village  communities  which  immediately  fol- 
lowed it  in  the  Middle  West,  was  poor  in 
culture  and  refinements  of  living,  but 
strong  in  racy  human  nature.  Hence 
overfastidious  people,  who  liked  "  quarry- 
ing among  the  ancients,"  found  his  stories 
coarse.  Homely,  would  be  a  truer  term, 
for  they  were  never  coarse  in  spirit,  even 
when  most  sordid  in  detail.  Ethically 
they  always  pointed  a  clean  moral.  They 
were  of  the  soil  —  strongly  of  the  soil  — 
but  never  of  the  charnel-house. 

His  story  of  the  skunks,  for  example,  is 
the  tale  of  a  man  who  hid  behind  his  wood- 
pile and  saw  six  of  these  malodorous  ani- 
mals walking  in  procession  to  deplete  his 
hen-house.  Firing,  he  killed  one,  and 
when  upbraided  later  for  not  exterminat- 
19 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ing  them  all,  replied  with  feeling  that  he 
had  been  six  weeks  getting  over  the  effects 
of  shooting  that  one,  and  "  reckoned  he  'd 
let  the  others  go." 

Then  there  is  the  story  of  the  louse  on 
the  man's  eyebrow,  supposed  to  have  been 
told  by  Mr.  Lincoln  to  silence  a  trouble- 
some member  of  the  Illinois  legislature  who 
questioned  the  constitutionality  of  every 
motion  made.  "  Mr.  Speaker,"  said  Lin- 
coln, with  a  quizzical  smile,  and  a  twinkle 
in  his  deep-set  eyes,  "  Mr.  Speaker,  the  ob- 
jection of  the  Member  from  So-and-So  re- 
minds me  of  an  old  friend  of  mine,"  and 
to  the  merriment  of  his  colleagues  he  went 
on  to  describe  a  grizzled  frontiersman  with 
shaggy  overhanging  brows,  and  spec- 
tacles, very  like  the  objecting  legislator. 
One  morning,  on  looking  out  of  his  cabin 
door  the  old  gentleman  thought  he  saw  a 
squirrel  frisking  on  a  tree  near  the  house. 
He  took  down  his  gun  and  fired  at  it,  but 
the  squirrel  paid  no  attention.  Again  and 
20 


ANECDOTES 

again  he  fired,  getting  more  mystified  and 
more  mortified  at  each  failure.  After  a 
round  dozen  shots  he  threw  down  the  gun, 
muttering  that  there  was  "  something 
wrong  with  the  rifle." 

"  Rifle  's  all  right,"  declared  his  son  who 
had  been  watching  him.  "  Rifle 's  all 
right,  but  where  's  your  squirrel  ?  " 

"  Don't  you  see  him?  "  thundered  the 
old  man,  pointing  out  the  exact  spot. 

"  No,  I  don't,"  was  the  candid  answer. 
Then,  turning  and  staring  into  his  father's 
face,  the  boy  broke  into  a  jubilant  shout. 
"  Now  I  see  your  squirrel !  You  've  been 
firing  at  a  louse  on  your  eyebrow." 

Certainly  the  moral  of  this  could  not  be 
improved  upon,  however  coldly  one  may  re- 
gard the  subject.  And  these  two  are  the 
most  violent  examples  of  their  class. 

Then  there  were  the  stories  in  which  sub- 
jects considered  either  too  sacred  or  too 
profane  were  introduced.  One  described  a 
rough  frontier  cabin,  with  children  running 
21 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

wild,  and  a  hard-worked  wife  and  mother, 
slatternly  and  unkempt,  not  overhappy 
perhaps,  but  with  a  woman's  loyal  instinct 
to  make  the  best  of  things  before  a  stran- 
ger. Into  this  setting  strode  an  itinerant 
Methodist,  unctious  and  insistent,  selling 
Bibles  as  well  as  preaching  salvation.  She 
received  him  with  frontier  hospitality,  but 
grew  restive  under  questioning  she  deemed 
intrusive,  and  finally  answered  rather 
sharply  that  of  course  they  owned  a  Bible. 
He  challenged  her  to  produce  it.  A  search 
revealed  nothing.  The  children  were 
called  to  her  aid,  and  at  last  one  of  them 
unearthed  and  held  up  for  inspection  a 
few  tattered  leaves.  Protest  and  re- 
proaches on  the  part  of  the  visitor,  but  on 
her  own  stanch  sticking  to  her  colors. 
"  She  had  no  idea,"  she  declared,  "  that 
they  were  so  nearly  out." 

Another  told  of  a  traveler  lost  during 
a   terrific   thunder-storm,   blundering   and 
floundering  along  in  thick  darkness,  except 
22 


ANECDOTES 

when  vivid  lightning  flashes  showed  him 
trees  falling  around  him,  and  the  heavens 
apparently  rent  asunder.  At  last  a  flash 
and  a  crash  more  terrible  than  all  the  rest 
brought  him  to  his  knees.  He  was  not  a 
praying  man.  His  petition  was  short  and 
to  the  point.  "  O  Lord,"  he  gasped,  "  if 
it's  all  the  same  to  you,  please  give  us  a 
little  more  light  and  a  little  less  noise ! " 

A  third  was  about  building  a  bridge 
across  a  very  dangerous  and  rapid  river. 
Several  engineers  had  tried  and  failed, 
when  a  devout  church  member  told  the 
committee  in  charge  that  he  had  a  friend 
who  could  do  it.  The  friend  was  sum- 
moned. "  Can  you  build  this  bridge  ?  " 
they  asked  him.  "  Certainly,"  was  the  an- 
swer. "  I  could  build  a  bridge  to  the  in- 
fernal regions."  The  committee  was  not 
only  skeptical  but  shocked.  After  the  en- 
gineer had  retired  his  friend  said,  "  I  know 

so  well,  he  is  so  honest  and  so  good 

a  builder,  that  if  he  says  he  can  build  a 
23 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

bridge  to  Hades,  I  suppose  he  can ;  but,  I 
must  say,"  he  added  thoughtfully,  "  I  have 
my  doubts  about  the  abutments  on  the  in- 
fernal side." 

The  twentieth  century  will  regard  such 
matters  more  leniently  than  the  nineteenth ; 
certainly  it  is  hard  to  see,  in  the  light  of 
present-day  liberty,  how  these  can  be 
classed  as  license. 

Many  of  the  stories  attributed  to  Lin- 
coln —  very  likely  with  reason,  since  every- 
body tells  them  —  are  of  the  class  which, 
through  sheer  excellence  and  much  repeti- 
tion, has  ceased  to  be  personal  or  even 
national  property,  and  become  part  of 
the  folk-lore  of  the  world.  "  Swapping 
horses  while  crossing  a  stream,"  is  an  ex- 
ample. He  gave  even  these  his  own  indi- 
vidual touch.  His  story  of  "  trying  the 
greens  on  Zerah,"  with  its  subtle  accusa- 
tion of  human  nature,  was  his  much  more 
artistic  version  of  the  usual  "  try  it  on  the 
dog."  As  he  told  it,  the  scene  of  the  story 
24 


ANECDOTES 

was  the  neighborhood  where  he  grew  upr 
In  the  early  spring,  after  a  monotonous 
winter  diet,  the  farmers  there  were  very 
fond  of  the  dish  called  "  greens  " —  boiled 
dandelion  tops,  or  other  harmless  wild 
leaves.  On  one  occasion  a  large  and 
greedy  family  sat  down  to  a  very  moder- 
ate-sized dish  of  greens,  and  Zerah,  the 
half-witted  boy,  whimpered  at  the  unfair 
distribution  of  the  dainty.  Shortly  after- 
ward the  whole  household,  including  him- 
self, became  desperately  sick,  something 
poisonous  having  been  gathered  by  mis- 
take. All  recovered,  but  the  lesson  was 
not  lost.  After  that  Zerah  was  invariably 
served  first,  with  his  full  share,  the 
others  saying  eagerly,  "  Try  it  on  Zerah ; 
if  he  stands  it,  it  won't  hurt  the  rest  of 
us." 

This  is  almost  the  only  one  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's stories  that  shows  a  trace  of  irony. 
His  heart  was  too  sunny,  his  belief  in  hu- 
man nature  too  strong,  to  permit  accusing 
25 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

his  fellow  men,  even  in  jest,  of  cruelty  or 
meanness. 

Another  point  is  interesting.  His 
stories  never  varied.  He  always  told  them 
the  same  way.  Once  established,  the  form 
remained  unchanged  to  the  last  word  and 
expression.  Mr.  A.  J.  Conant,  who  oc- 
cupied a  government  office  in  Washington 
during  the  rebellion,  has  given  us  a  hint 
of  the  way  in  which  Mr.  Lincoln  made  a 
story  his  own.  He  told  the  President  a 
tale  which  the  latter  enjoyed  and  some- 
times repeated,  giving  him  due  credit. 
This,  by  the  way,  is  not  the  invariable  cus- 
tom of  story-tellers.  The  story  was  about 
a  man  who  hoped  to  become  county  judge, 
and  hired  a  horse  and  buggy  from  his 
neighbor,  a  liveryman,  in  order  to  drive  to 
the  nominating  convention  held  in  a  town 
some  sixteen  miles  away.  He  asked  the 
livery-stable  keeper  to  give  him  the  best 
and  fastest  horse  he  had,  explaining  that 
he  was  anxious  to  get  there  early  and  do  a 
26 


ANECDOTES 

little  log-rolling  before  the  meeting  opened. 
His  neighbor,  being  of  opposing  politics, 
had  other  views,  and  furnished  him  with  a 
beast  which,  though  starting  out  very  well, 
broke  down  utterly.  Long  before  he 
reached  his  destination  the  convention  had 
adjourned,  and  of  course  he  lost  the  nomi- 
nation. Even  with  its  head  turned  toward 
home  the  poor  horse  could  not  hurry.  It 
was  late  the  following  afternoon  before 
they  pulled  up  in  front  of  the  stable.  The 
candidate's  anger  had  had  time  to  cool, 
and  feeling  the  uselessness  of  recrimina- 
tion, he  handed  the  reins  over  to  his 
neighbor,  only  remarking :  "  Jones,  I 
see  you  are  training  this  horse  for  the 
New  York  market.  I  know  you  expect  to 
sell  him  for  a  good  price  to  an  undertaker 
for  a  hearse-horse."  In  vain  the  owner 
protested.  "  Don't  deny  it,"  said  the 
would-be  judge.  "  I  know  it  is  true.  I 
know  by  his  gait  how  much  time  you  have 
spent  training  him  to  go  before  a  hearse. 
27 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

But  it  is  all  labor  lost,  my  friend.  He  will 
never  do.  He  is  altogether  too  slow.  He 
could  n't  get  a  corpse  to  the  cemetery  in 
time  for  the  resurrection ! " 

The  words  in  italics  show  Mr.  Lincoln's 
interpolations.  Few  as  they  are,  they  dis- 
close his  quick  grasp  of  the  motives  of 
both  men,  and,  rendering  the  story  plausi- 
ble, make  it  twice  as  amusing. 

But  Lincoln's  stories  might  have  been 
short  and  good  and  dramatically  told,  and 
forgotten  in  a  day.  Their  kindliness 
would  not  have  saved  them,  or  their  homely 
realism.  Their  crowning  excellence  lay  in 
being  always  apt  —  told  not  for  themselves 
alone,  but  in  illustration  of  some  point  he 
saw  and  wished  to  make  clear  to  others. 
In  that  sense  they  were  not  stories  at  all, 
but  parables.  Their  teller  would  have 
been  the  first  to  disclaim  any  intention  of 
preaching.  He  told  them  as  simply  as  he 
did  everything  else  in  life;  but  mentally 
and  spiritually  he  was  of  the  line  of  the 
28 


ANECDOTES 

old  Hebrew  poets,  who  had  a  message  to 
deliver,  and  spoke  it  with  conviction,  in 
vivid  figures  of  the  life  they  knew.  And 
just  because  his  stories  were  so  apt  and  so 
wonderfully  told,  retelling  them  in  print 
after  half  a  century  is  like  wrenching  jew- 
els from  their  setting,  or  sea  growths  from 
ocean  gardens,  or  anything  supremely  fit 
and  right  in  its  own  place,  and  displaying 
it  mutilated  in  utterly  alien  surroundings. 
So  short  were  these  stories,  and  so 
charged  with  meaning,  that  anecdote  melts 
insensibly  into  simile.  Sometimes  it  is  hard 
to  fix  the  boundary  line  between  them.  In 
a  letter  declining  an  invitation  to  a  Jeffer- 
son birthday  celebration  in  1859,  he  wrote : 
"  I  remember  being  once  much  amused  at 
seeing  two  partially  intoxicated  men  en- 
gaged in  a  fight  with  their  great-coats  on, 
which  fight,  after  a  long  and  rather  harm- 
less contest,  ended  in  each  having  fought 
himself  out  of  his  own  coat  and  into  that 
of  the  other.  If  the  two  leading  parties 
29 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

of  this  day  are  really  identical  with  the 
two  in  the  days  of  Jefferson  and  Adams, 
they  have  performed  the  same  feat."  Is 
this  a  story,  or  a  simile? 

Lincoln's  early  letter  to  his  friend 
Joshua  F.  Speed,  describing  his  predica- 
ment when  he  wanted  to  run  for  Congress 
and  instead  found  himself  sent  to  the  nomi- 
nating convention  against  his  will,  in- 
structed to  vote  for  his  friend  Baker,  as 
leaving  him  "  fixed  a  good  deal  like  a  fel- 
low who  is  made  a  groomsman  to  a  man  that 
has  cut  him  out  and  is  marrying  his  own 
dear  *  gal,'  "  summed  up  a  drama  and  a 
political  situation  in  one  sentence ;  though 
not  quite  so  vividly  as  did  his  retort  to 
the  friend  who  begged  him  to  interfere  in 
the  campaign  of  1864  when  Republicans 
were  quarreling  among  themselves,  and 
seemed  thereby  in  danger  of  losing  the  elec- 
tion. "  I  learned  a  great  many  years 
ago,"  was  his  answer,  "  that  in  a  fight  be- 
30 


ANECDOTES 

tween  husband  and  wife,  a  third  party 
should  never  get  between  the  woman's  skil- 
let and  the  man's  ax-helve." 

His  mind  seemed  to  translate  every  sit- 
uation into  dramatic  form,  and  he  became 
wonderfully  adept  in  setting  forth  the  pic- 
ture he  saw  in  a  few  swift  words.  Pages 
of  quotation  from  his  letters  and  daily 
conversation  could  be  made,  showing  this 
trait.  Whether  it  developed  out  of  his 
story-telling  faculty,  or  side  by  side  with 
it,  is  a  question  more  interesting  than  im- 
portant. His  answer  to  the  New  Salem 
election  clerk  that  he  "  could  make  a  few 
rabbit  tracks  "  when  that  worthy  inquired 
if  he  knew  how  to  write,  indicates  that  it 
was  of  sufficiently  early  origin ;  and  in  the 
very  last  public  address  he  made,  speaking 
of  establishing  loyal  governments  in  the 
southern  States,  he  used  the  figure  of  the 
fowl  and  the  egg.  "  Concede  that  the  new 
government  of  Louisiana  is  only  to  what  it 
31 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

should  be,  as  the  egg  is  to  the  fowl,"  he 
said ;  "  we  shall  sooner  have  the  fowl  by 
hatching  the  egg  than  by  smashing  it." 

"  A  man  watches  his  pear  tree  day  after 
day,  impatient  for  the  ripening  of  the 
fruit.  Let  him  attempt  to  force  the  proc- 
ess, and  he  may  spoil  both  fruit  and  tree. 
But  let  him  patiently  wait,  and  the  ripe 
pear  at  length  falls  into  his  lap,"  was  his 
illustration  of  the  folly  of  trying  to  has- 
ten public  opinion.  He  was  speaking  of 
the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  as  he  was 
also  when  he  gave  that  disconcerting  an- 
swer to  the  committee  of  Chicago  clergy- 
men :  "  I  do  not  want  to  issue  a  document 
that  the  whole  world  will  see  must  neces- 
sarily be  inoperative,  like  the  Pope's  bull 
against  the  comet !  " 

"  I  asked  him  what  was  his  policy," 
said  the  Prince  de  Joinville,  telling  of  an 
interview  he  once  had  with  President  Lin- 
coln. "  I  have  none,"  he  replied.  "  I 
pass  my  life  in  preventing  the  storm  from 
32 


ANECDOTES 

blowing  down  the  tent,  and  I  drive  in  the 
pegs  as  fast  as  they  are  pulled  up." 
When  emancipation  became  a  "  peg,"  he 
drove  it  home  with  great  effect. 

"  Two  dogs  that  get  less  eager  to  fight, 
the  nearer  they  come  together,"  and, 
"  fitting  the  round  man  into  the  square 
hole,"  are  similes  recorded  in  the  diary  of 
Secretary  Welles.  Lincoln's  half-humor- 
ous likening  of  himself  at  the  beginning  of 
his  first  term,  when  civil  offices  had  to  be 
filled  and  appointments  made,  regardless  of 
whether  war  broke  out  or  not,  to  "  a  man  so 
busy  renting  rooms  in  one  end  of  his  house 
that  he  has  no  time  to  put  out  a  fire  burn- 
ing in  the  other  " ;  his  discouraged  remark 
that  sending  men  to  the  Army  of  the  Po- 
tomac was  like  "  shoveling  fleas  across  a 
barn  floor  —  half  of  them  never  got 
there " ;  and  his  searching  question  to 
critics  who  denounced  his  war  methods  as 
too  severe :  "  Would  you  prosecute  it  in 
future  with  elder-stalk  squirts  charged 
3  33 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

with  rose-water  ? "  are  among  the  most 
graphic. 

In  writing  to  military  commanders  he 
was  constantly  using  such  figures.  His 
admonition  to  "  hold  on  with  a  bull-dog 
grip  and  chew  and  choke,"  has  in  it  the 
very  spirit  of  dogged  fight ;  while  his  warn- 
ing to  General  Hooker  not  to  get  his 
army  "  entangled  upon  the  river,  like  an 
ox  jumped  half  over  a  fence,  and  liable 
to  be  torn  by  dogs  front  and  rear,  without 
a  fair  chance  to  gore  one  way  or  kick  the 
other,"  is  as  comprehensive  as  it  was  sound 
from  a  military  point  of  view. 

In  these,  as  in  his  anecdotes,  there  is  a 
noticeable  absence  of  bitterness.  After 
Chickamauga  he  did  indeed  speak  of  Rose- 
crans  as  "  confused  and  stunned,  like  a 
duck  hit  on  the  head,"  but  that  was  in  the 
privacy  of  the  Executive  office,  to  one  of 
his  confidential  secretaries.  To  the  same 
young  man  he  admitted  that  a  high  official, 
then  plotting  against  his  reelection,  would 
34, 


ANECDOTES 

v 

probably,  "  like  the  blue-bottle  fly,  lay  eggs 
in  every  rotten  spot  he  can  find,"  but  in 
public  he  never  admitted  that  this  officer 
was  at  fault. 

Had  Lincoln  been  of  a  vindictive  tem- 
perament, or  possessed  of  less  self-control, 
this  dangerous  power  of  using  words  might 
have  brought  about  his  undoing.  Had  it 
become  master  of  his  mind,  instead  of  its 
servant,  it  could  have  ridden  him  far,  mak- 
ing enemies  at  every  turn.  But  his  kindly 
nature  held  it  rigorously  in  check.  So 
rigorously  that  when,  tried  beyond  endur- 
ance, his  pent-up  feelings  did  break  the 
barrier  and  find  outlet  in  a  stinging  phrase, 
it  was  worse  than  any  blow  —  as  when, 
looking  down  on  the  sleeping  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  he  called  it,  in  sorrow,  more  than 
in  anger,  "  only  McClellan's  body-guard." 


35 


Ill 

HIS    DEVELOPING    POWER 

IN  analyzing  Lincoln's  influence  as 
writer  and  speaker,  teacher  and  neigh- 
bor, it  must  be  conceded  that  this  gift  of 
anecdote  and  simile,  this  instinct  to  trans- 
late situations  into  dramatic  form,  was  a 
tremendous  help  in  getting  his  views'  before 
the  public  in  a  shape  to  attract  and  hold 
attention.  Another  gift,  equally  valuable, 
developed  later  —  during  the  ten  years 
preceding  his  election  as  President.  This 
was  his  art  of  compressing  a  moral  truth 
or  a  guiding  principle  into  one  short  and 
telling  sentence.  All  three  were  merely 
different  manifestations  of  his  dominant 
mental  quality,  his  strong  reasoning  power. 
36 


HIS    DEVELOPING    POWER 

nearly  twenty  years.  Some  said  that  he 
had  been  his  rival  in  love  as  well. 

Lincoln  took  no  public  part  in  the  dis- 
cussion until  September.  Meantime  he 
was  studying  the  question  in  all  its  bear- 
ings, historical,  legal  and  political.  Op- 
position newspapers  accused  him  of 
"  mousing  about  the  libraries  in  the  State 
House  " —  and  the  charge  was  perfectly 
true. 

When  he  did  speak  it  was  in  a  new  tone 
of  authority.  His  statements  were  backed 
by  facts,  and  could  be  proved  by  legislative 
documents.  There  was  no  lack  of  force 
in  his  presentation,  but  it  was  done  with 
unwonted  seriousness.  He  used  fewer 
anecdotes,  and  cited  more  history;  and 
there  was  a  noticeable  absence  of  the  wordy 
fury  and  explosive  epithets  characteristic 
of  the  day.  "  His  speeches  at  once  at- 
tracted a  more  marked  attention  than 
they  had  ever  before  done,"  the  autobiog- 
raphy continues.  "  As  the  canvass  pro- 
53 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ceeded  he  was  drawn  to  different  parts  of 
the  State.  .  .  .  He  did  not  abandon  the 
law,  but  gave  his  attention  by  turns  to 
that  and  politics.  The  State  agricultural 
fair  was  at  Springfield  that  year,  and 
Douglas  was  announced  to  speak  there." 

The  agitation  had  already  brought  the 
Whig  and  Democratic  parties  in  Illinois 
to  the  verge  of  disruption.  Douglas  had 
been  almost  mobbed  when  he  appeared  in 
Chicago.  By  common  consent  political 
leaders  hurried  to  Springfield  from  all 
parts  of  the  State,  and  a  sort  of  tourna- 
ment of  speech-making  took  place,  lasting 
nearly  a  week.  Douglas  made  a  speech  on 
the  first  day.  Next  afternoon  Lincoln  an- 
swered him,  speaking  for  more  than  three 
hours.  Neither  speech  was  reported  in 
full,  but  the  newspapers  gave  much  space 
to  the  meetings.  One  account  of  Lincoln's 
speech  gives  such  a  graphic  picture  of  the 
scene,  that  quotation,  even  of  its  very  bad 
English,  may  be  forgiven. 
54 


HIS    DEVELOPING    POWER 

This  anti-Nebraska  speech  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's was  the  profoundest,  in  our  opinion, 
that  he  has  made  in  his  whole  life.  He  felt 
upon  his  soul  ~the  truths  burn  which  he  ut- 
tered, and  all  present  felt  that  he  was  true 
to  his  own  soul.  His  feelings  once  or  twice 
swelled  within  and  came  near  stifling  utter- 
ance, and  particularly  so  when  he  said  that 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  taught  us 
that  "  all  men  are  created  equal " — that  by 
the  laws  of  Nature  and  Nature's  God  all  men 
were  free  —  that  the  Nebraska  Law  chained 
men,  and  that  there  was  as  much  difference 
between  the  glorious  truths  of  the  immortal 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  Ne- 
braska Bill  as  there  was  between  God  and 
Mammon.  These  are  his  own  words.  They 
were  spoken  with  emphasis,  feeling,  and  true 
eloquence.  .  .  .  We  only  wish  others  all  over 
the  State  had  seen  him  while  uttering  these 
truths  only  as  Lincoln  can  utter  a  felt  and 
deeply  felt  truth.  He  quivered  with  feeling 
and  emotion.  The  whole  house  was  as  still 
as  death.  He  attacked  the  Nebraska  Bill 
with  unusual  warmth  and  energy,  and  all  felt 
55 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

that  a  man  of  strength  was  its  enemy,  and  that 
he  intended  to  blast  it  if  he  could  by  strong 
and  manly  efforts.  He  was  most  successful. 
The  house  approved  ...  by  loud  and  con- 
tinuous huzzas.  Women  waved  their  white 
handkerchiefs.  .  .  .  Douglas  felt  the  sting. 
He  frequently  interrupted  Mr.  Lincoln.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Lincoln  exhibited  Douglas  in  all  the  at- 
titudes he  could  be  placed  in  a  friendly  de- 
bate. He  exhibited  the  Bill  in  all  its  aspects, 
to  show  its  humbuggery  and  falsehoods,  and 
when  thus  .  .  .  held  up  to  the  gaze  of  the 
vast  crowd,  a  kind  of  scorn  and  mockery  was 
visible  upon  the  face  of  the  crowd,  and  upon 
the  lips  of  the  most  eloquent  speaker.  .  .  . 
At  the  conclusion  of  this  speech  every  man 
and  child  felt  that  it  was  unanswerable. 

Two  weeks  later  the  same  champions  met 
again,  and  discussed  the  same  questions  at 
Peoria,  Illinois.  It  is  said  that  at  the  end 
of  this  debate  Senator  Douglas  sought  a 
friendly  interview  with  Lincoln  for  the 
purpose  of  obtaining  from  him  an  agree- 
56 


HIS    DEVELOPING    POWER 

ment  that  neither  would  speak  again  in 
public  before  the  election.  Douglas  had 
good  cause  to  be  alarmed  at  the  unexpected 
power  developed  by  his  antagonist ;  all  the 
strength  Mr.  Lincoln  displayed  in  the  next 
six  years  —  the  eloquence  of  his  "  lost  " 
speech  at  Bloomington  in  1856,  the  argu- 
ments used  in  his  joint  debates  with  Doug- 
las in  1858,  and  the  convincing  logic  of 
his  Cooper  Institute  speech  in  1860  — 
was  foreshadowed  in  these  two  discourses. 
With  the  advent  of  this  new  and  deeper 
interest  in  national  affairs,  and  the  substi- 
tution of  a  vital  moral  principle  for  the 
party  issues  and  local  questions  discussed 
in  his  former  campaigns,  can  be  dated  the 
change  in  Lincoln's  manner  of  speaking. 
The  best  examples  of  his  first  style  were 
remarkable ;  witty,  trenchant,  and  ef- 
fective; full  of  droll  illustrations,  and  not 
lacking  in  close  reasoning.  They  were 
rattling  good  stump  speeches  of  the  kind 
to  win  tribute  of  applause  from  the  other 
57 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

side,  however  unwilling;  summed  up  in  an 
ancient  Democrat's  exclamation  as  he  beat 
his  hands  together  lustily :  "  I  don't  be- 
lieve a  darned  thing  he  says,  but  I  can't 
help  clapping  him  —  he  's  so  pat!  " 

This  now  gave  way  to  increased  earnest- 
ness, and  to  a  sober  presentation  of  his  sub- 
ject, clear  in  statement,  and  exact  in 
defining  the  questions  at  issue: 

"  I  do  not  propose  to  question  the  pa- 
triotism or  to  assail  the  motives  of  any 
man  or  class  of  men,  but  rather  to  con- 
fine myself  strictly  to  the  naked  merits 
of  the  question.  I  also  wish  to  be  no  less 
than  national  in  all  the  positions  I  may 
take,  and  whenever  I  take  ground  which 
others  have  thought,  or  may  think,  nar- 
row, sectional  and  dangerous  to  the  Union, 
I  hope  to  give  a  reason  which  will  appear 
sufficient,  at  least  to  some,  why  I  think 
differently.  And,  as  this  subject  is  no 
other  than  part  and  parcel  of  the  larger 
general  question  of  domestic  slavery,  I  wish 
58 


HIS    DEVELOPING    POWER 

to  make  and  to  keep  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  existing  institution  and  the  ex- 
tension of  it, -so  broad  and  so  clear  that 
no  honest  man  can  misunderstand  me,  and 
no  dishonest  one  successfully  misrepresent 
me." 

Historical  fact  and  cold  logic  replaced 
good-natured  thrusts  at  men  and  events, 
anecdotes  gave  way  to  axioms,  and  illus- 
trations, sparingly  used,  were,  when  em- 
ployed at  all,  forcible  rather  than  humor- 
ous. 

"  If  you  think  you  can  slander  a  woman 
into  loving  you,  or  a  man  into  voting  for 
you,  try  it  till  you  are  satisfied." 

"  A  highwayman  holds  a  pistol  to  my 
ear  and  mutters  through  his  teeth,  *  Stand 
and  deliver,  or  I  shall  kill  you,  and  then 
you  will  be  a  murderer ! ' : 

"  If  I  saw  a  venomous  snake  crawling 

in  the  road,  any  man  would  say  I  might 

seize  the  nearest  stick  and  kill  it ;  but  if  I 

found  that  snake  in  bed  with  my  children, 

59 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

that  would  be  another  question.  I  might 
hurt  the  children  more  than  the  snake, 
and  it  might  bite  them."  This  was  used 
to  emphasize  his  point  that  slavery  could 
not  be  attacked  where  it  already  existed. 
"  But  if  there  was  a  bed  newly  made  up, 
to  which  the  children  were  to  be  taken,  and 
it  was  proposed  to  take  a  batch  of  young 
snakes  and  put  them  there  with  them,  I 
take  it  no  man  would  say  there  was  any 
question  how  I  ought  to  decide."  And  he 
characterized  Douglas's  policy  of  letting 
each  separate  territory  settle  the  moral 
question  for  itself,  as  "  groping  for  some 
middle  ground  between  the  right  and  the 
wrong,  vain  as  the  search  for  a  man  who 
should  be  neither  a  living  man  nor  a  dead 
man." 

Logic  and  force,  an  unassailable  array 

of  facts  presented  with  great  earnestness, 

and    infrequent    though    sometimes    grue- 

somely    pertinent    illustrations,    were    not, 

60 


HIS    DEVELOPING    POWER 

however,  the  only  elements  of  strength  in 
this  second  manner  of  Lincoln's.  It  was 
at  this  period  that  he  developed  that  power 
so  noticeable  in  his  later  utterances  of 
compressing  truth  into  short  and  ringing 
sentences,  which  seemed  to  catch  up  the 
very  spirit  of  his  argument  and  focus  it  as 
in  a  burning  glass. 

"  No  man  is  good  enough  to  govern  an- 
other man  without  that  other's  consent," 
he  said  in  one  of  the  earliest  of  these 
speeches. 

"  When  the  white  man  governs  himself, 
that  is  self-government;  but  when  he  gov- 
erns himself  and  also  governs  another  man, 
that  is  more  than  self-government  —  that 
is  despotism." 

"  No  man  can  logically  say  he  does  n't 
care  whether  a  wrong  is  voted  up  or  voted 
down."  "  He  cannot  say  people  have  a 
right  to  do  wrong." 

"  He  who  would  be  no  slave  must  con- 
61 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

sent  to  have  no  slave.  Those  who  deny 
freedom  to  others  deserve  it  not  for  them- 
selves, and  under  a  just  God,  cannot  long 
retain  it." 

"  Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes 
might,  and  in  that  faith  let  us  dare  to  do 
our  duty  as  we  understand  it."  This  last 
was  the  closing  exhortation  of  his  Cooper 
Institute  speech. 

Battle-cries  of  his  new  faith,  they  were 
charged  with  an  earnestness  ten  times  more 
impressive  than  the  sallies  of  his  earlier 
manner.  His  own  growth,  and  the  maj- 
esty of  his  theme,  were  alike  apparent.  No 
longer  merely  a  clever  speaker,  talking  for 
political  ends,  he  had  received  his  Pente- 
costal touch  of  flame  and  become  a  teacher 
—  a  leader  of  men. 


IV 

THE  START  IN  LIFE 

THOUGH  we  have  little  to  do  with 
Lincoln's  youth,  it  is  unfair  to  leave 
it  entirely  out  of  the  picture,  since  the 
half-faced  camp  at  Pigeon  Cove  and  the 
settlements  in  Indiana  and  Illinois  where 
he  spent  his  boyhood  left  their  lasting 
trace  on  speech  and  habit.  It  was  a  life 
of  democratic  equality,  wherein  no  man 
was  much  richer  or  wiser  than  his  fellows ; 
a  life  of  open  air,  neighborly  helpfulness 
and  no  shams,  in  which  each  individual 
stood  or  fell  on  his  own  merits.  In  the 
White  House  Lincoln  continued  to  measure 
people  and  things  by  these  unsophisticated 
standards  of  personal  worth  and  useful- 
ness. 

63 


"  Every  man  is  said  to  have  his  pe- 
culiar ambition.  Whether  it  be  true  or  not, 
I  can  say,  for  one,  that  I  have  no  other 
so  great  as  that  of  being  truly  esteemed 
of  my  fellow  men  by  rendering  myself 
worthy  of  their  esteem,"  he  wrote  at  the 
age  of  twenty-three,  in  his  first  published 
"  Address  to  the  Voters  of  Sangamon 
County."  As  a  summing  up  of  his  atti- 
tude toward  society  it  would  have  been 
equally  true  on  the  day  of  his  death.  He 
was  frankly  ambitious,  but  with  a  whole- 
some ambition,  willing  good  alike  to  him- 
self and  his  neighbor.  As  a  means  to  that 
end  he  seized  on  every  chance  bit  of  wis- 
dom that  came  his  way,  welcoming  it  as 
eagerly  in  the  White  House  as  in  the  mud- 
chinked  log  cabin,  and  absorbing  it,  not 
with  a  scholar's  thirsty  love  of  learning 
for  its  own -sake,  but  for  the  purpose  it 
might  serve  later  on. 

Although  the  people  among  whom  his 
youth  was  passed  were  unlettered,  we  are 
64 


THE    START    IN    LIFE 

apt  to  dwell  with  undue  insistence  on  the 
intellectual  poverty,  as  we  do  on  the  phys- 
ical misery,  of  those  days.  In  things  of 
the  spirit  and  things  of  the  body  alike,  the 
boy  had  enough  to  nourish  and  stimulate, 
though  never  enough  to  surfeit  his  growing 
needs.  If  we  were  to  imagine  his  early 
life  an  allegorical  play,  and  write  down  as 
dramatis  persona  a  list  of  the  human  be- 
ings and  the  things  that  influenced  him,  it 
might  read  something  like  this : 

A  Father. 
A  Good  Woman. 
A  Sweetheart. 
A   Schoolmaster. 

A  Constable  who  owned  a  Law  Book. 
A  Town  Drunkard. 
A  Bully. 
A  Braggart. 
An  Indian  Chief. 
A  Voyage  down  a  Great  River. 
A  few  Good  Books. 
s  65 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

His  father,  although  not  a  worldly  suc- 
cess, was  a  man  of  good  reputation  and 
native  wit.  His  stepmother  took  the  boy 
into  her  big  warm  heart  and  gave  him  in- 
tellectual sympathy  as  well  as  physical 
comfort.  Sweet  Ann  Rutledge  whose 
early  death  plunged  Lincoln  in  such  grief, 
was  a  girl  of  greatest  purity  and 
charm;  so,  in  the  three  nearest  relation- 
ships of  life,  he  had  the  best  the  world 
can  offer. 

Mentor  Graham,  the  New  Salem  school- 
master, while  not  the  wisest  of  his  calling, 
was  learned  enough  to  help  him  to  a  knowl- 
edge of  grammar  and  surveying.  Jack 
Kelso,  disreputable  town  drunkard  though 
he  was,  had  a  love  of  Shakspere  and  Burns 
to  offset  his  love  of  drink.  Jack  Arm- 
strong, leader  of  the  Clary's  Grove  rowdies, 
fought  Lincoln,  felt  his  strength,  and 
loved  him,  to  the  lasting  good  of  both. 
Dave  Turnham,  constable,  possibly  added 
.to  the  interest  of  his  "  Revised  Statutes 
66 


THE    START    IN    LIFE 

of  Indiana  "  by  the  unnecessary  ceremony 
with  which  he  surrounded  the  volume. 
Denton  Offut,  who  bragged  and  blustered, 
and  set  Lincoln  in  the  pathway  of  commer- 
cial venture  and  heavy  debt ;  James  Gentry, 
local  capitalist,  whose  substance  loaded  the 
flatboat  upon  which  the  future  emancipa- 
tor floated  down  into  the  heart  of  slavery ; 
Black  Hawk,  the  defiant  old  chief,  whose 
revolt  gave  Lincoln  his  short  experience  of 
military  service;  and  the  chorus  of  neigh- 
bors and  acquaintances  who  laughed  at 
his  boyish  stories  and  mock  speeches,  each 
had  a  share  in  building  his  character. 

As  for  the  few  books  that  fell  into  his 
hands,  blind  chance  could  never  have  flung 
together  a  collection  so  fitted  to  his  future 
needs.  The  Bible,  ^Esop's  "Fables," 
"  Robinson  Crusoe,"  "  The  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress," a  "  History  of  the  United  States," 
a  "  Life  of  Washington,"  and  Dave  Turn- 
ham's  cherished  copy  of  the  "  Revised 
Statutes  of  Indiana,"  embracing  within  its 
67 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

covers  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  Ordinance  of  1787  with  its  provision 
excluding  slavery  from  the  Northwest  Ter- 
ritory. 

In  this  small  but  fruitful  mine  he  delved 
to  good  purpose.  He  was  not  abnormal  — 
only  a  normal  boy  of  unusual  mental  gifts, 
with  a  fixed  purpose  to  succeed,  and 
blessed  with  a  stepmother  who  systemat- 
ically abetted  his  efforts  at  self-improve- 
ment. Even  his  father,  who,  owing  to  the 
family  tragedy  of  old  Abraham  Lincoln's 
death  at  the  hand  of  savages,  grew  up 
"  literally  without  education  "  and  as  his 
son  tells  us,  "  never  did  more  in  the  way 
of  writing  than  to  bunglingly  sign  his 
own  name,"  had  ambitions  for  the  lad, 
chief  of  which  was  that  he  should  learn  to 
"  cipher  clean  through  the  'rithmetic." 

So,  though  the  path  of  knowledge 
stopped  far  short  of  a*  college  door,  it  was 
carefully  smoothed  for  him  inside  his  own 
68 


HIS    DEVELOPING    POWER 

nearly  twenty  years.  Some  said  that  he 
had  been  his  rival  in  love  as  well. 

Lincoln  took  no  public  part  in  the  dis- 
cussion until  September.  Meantime  he 
was  studying  the  question  in  all  its  bear- 
ings, historical,  legal  and  political.  Op- 
position newspapers  accused  him  of 
"  mousing  about  the  libraries  in  the  State 
House  " —  and  the  charge  was  perfectly 
true. 

When  he  did  speak  it  was  in  a  new  tone 
of  authority.  His  statements  were  backed 
by  facts,  and  could  be  proved  by  legislative 
documents.  There  was  no  lack  of  force 
in  his  presentation,  but  it  was  done  with 
unwonted  seriousness.  He  used  fewer 
anecdotes,  and  cited  more  history;  and 
there  was  a  noticeable  absence  of  the  wordy 
fury  and  explosive  epithets  characteristic 
of  the  day.  "  His  speeches  at  once  at- 
tracted a  more  marked  attention  than 
they  had  ever  before  done,"  the  autobiog- 
raphy continues.  "  As  the  canvass  pro- 
53 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ceeded  he  was  drawn  to  different  parts  of 
the  State.  .  .  .  He  did  not  abandon  the 
law,  but  gave  his  attention  by  turns  to 
that  and  politics.  The  State  agricultural 
fair  was  at  Springfield  that  year,  and 
Douglas  was  announced  to  speak  there." 

The  agitation  had  already  brought  the 
Whig  and  Democratic  parties  in  Illinois 
to  the  verge  of  disruption.  Douglas  had 
been  almost  mobbed  when  he  appeared  in 
Chicago.  By  common  consent  political 
leaders  hurried  to  Springfield  from  all 
parts  of  the  State,  and  a  sort  of  tourna- 
ment of  speech-making  took  place,  lasting 
nearly  a  week.  Douglas  made  a  speech  on 
the  first  day.  Next  afternoon  Lincoln  an- 
swered him,  speaking  for  more  than  three 
hours.  Neither  speech  was  reported  in 
full,  but  the  newspapers  gave  much  space 
to  the  meetings.  One  account  of  Lincoln's 
speech  gives  such  a  graphic  picture  of  the 
scene,  that  quotation,  even  of  its  very  bad 
English,  may  be  forgiven. 
54 


HIS    DEVELOPING    POWER 

This  anti-Nebraska  speech  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's was  the  profoundest,  in  our  opinion, 
that  he  has  made  in  his  whole  life.  He  felt 
upon  his  soul  the  truths  burn  which  he  ut- 
tered, and  all  present  felt  that  he  was  true 
to  his  own  soul.  His  feelings  once  or  twice 
swelled  within  and  came  near  stifling  utter- 
ance, and  particularly  so  when  he  said  that 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  taught  us 
that  "  all  men  are  created  equal " — that  by 
the  laws  of  Nature  and  Nature's  God  all  men 
were  free  —  that  the  Nebraska  Law  chained 
men,  and  that  there  was  as  much  difference 
between  the  glorious  truths  of  the  immortal 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  Ne- 
braska Bill  as  there  was  between  God  and 
Mammon.  These  are  his  own  words.  They 
were  spoken  with  emphasis,  feeling,  and  true 
eloquence.  .  .  .  We  only  wish  others  all  over 
the  State  had  seen  him  while  uttering  these 
truths  only  as  Lincoln  can  utter  a  felt  and 
deeply  felt  truth.  He  quivered  with  feeling 
and  emotion.  The  whole  house  was  as  still 
as  death.  He  attacked  the  Nebraska  Bill 
with  unusual  warmth  and  energy,  and  all  felt 
55 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

that  a  man  of  strength  was  its  enemy,  and  that 
he  intended  to  blast  it  if  he  could  by  strong 
and  manly  efforts.  He  was  most  successful. 
The  house  approved  ...  by  loud  and  con- 
tinuous huzzas.  Women  waved  their  white 
handkerchiefs.  .  .  .  Douglas  felt  the  sting. 
He  frequently  interrupted  Mr.  Lincoln.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Lincoln  exhibited  Douglas  in  all  the  at- 
titudes he  could  be  placed  in  a  friendly  de- 
bate. He  exhibited  the  Bill  in  all  its  aspects, 
to  show  its  humbuggery  and  falsehoods,  and 
when  thus  .  .  .  held  up  to  the  gaze  of  the 
vast  crowd,  a  kind  of  scorn  and  mockery  was 
visible  upon  the  face  of  the  crowd,  and  upon 
the  lips  of  the  most  eloquent  speaker.  .  .  . 
At  the  conclusion  of  this  speech  every  man 
and  child  felt  that  it  was  unanswerable. 

Two  weeks  later  the  same  champions  met 
again,  and  discussed  the  same  questions  at 
Peoria,  Illinois.  It  is  said  that  at  the  end 
of  this  debate  Senator  Douglas  sought  a 
friendly  interview  with  Lincoln  for  the 
purpose  of  obtaining  from  him  an  agree- 
56 


HIS    DEVELOPING    POWER 

ment  that  neither  would  speak  again  in 
public  before  the  election.  Douglas  had 
good  cause  to  be  alarmed  at  the  unexpected 
power  developed  by  his  antagonist;  all  the 
strength  Mr.  Lincoln  displayed  in  the  next 
six  years  —  the  eloquence  of  his  "  lost " 
speech  at  Bloomington  in  1856,  the  argu- 
ments used  in  his  joint  debates  with  Doug- 
las in  1858,  and  the  convincing  logic  of 
his  Cooper  Institute  speech  in  1860  — 
was  foreshadowed  in  these  two  discourses. 
With  the  advent  of  this  new  and  deeper 
interest  in  national  affairs,  and  the  substi- 
tution of  a  vital  moral  principle  for  the 
party  issues  and  local  questions  discussed 
in  his  former  campaigns,  can  be  dated  the 
change  in  Lincoln's  manner  of  speaking. 
The  best  examples  of  his  first  style  were 
remarkable;  witty,  trenchant,  and  ef- 
fective; full  of  droll  illustrations,  and  not 
lacking  in  close  reasoning.  They  were 
rattling  good  stump  speeches  of  the  kind 
to  win  tribute  of  applause  from  the  other 
57 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

side,  however  unwilling;  summed  up  in  an 
ancient  Democrat's  exclamation  as  he  beat 
his  hands  together  lustily :  "  I  don't  be- 
lieve a  darned  thing  he  says,  but  I  can't 
help  clapping  him  —  he  's  so  pat!  " 

This  now  gave  way  to  increased  earnest- 
ness, and  to  a  sober  presentation  of  his  sub- 
ject,  clear  in  statement,  and  exact  in 
defining  the  questions  at  issue: 

"  I  do  not  propose  to  question  the  pa- 
triotism or  to  assail  the  motives  of  any 
man  or  class  of  men,  but  rather  to  con- 
fine myself  strictly  to  the  naked  merits 
of  the  question.  I  also  wish  to  be  no  less 
than  national  in  all  the  positions  I  may 
take,  and  whenever  I  take  ground  which 
others  have  thought,  or  may  think,  nar- 
row, sectional  and  dangerous  to  the  Union, 
I  hope  to  give  a  reason  which  will  appear 
sufficient,  at  least  to  some,  why  I  think 
differently.  And,  as  this  subject  is  no 
other  than  part  and  parcel  of  the  larger 
general  question  of  domestic  slavery,  I  wish 
58 


HIS    DEVELOPING    POWER 

to  make  and  to  keep  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  existing  institution  and  the  ex- 
tension of  it,  so  broad  and  so  clear  that 
no  honest  man  can  misunderstand  me,  and 
no  dishonest  one  successfully  misrepresent 
me." 

Historical  fact  and  cold  logic  replaced 
good-natured  thrusts  at  men  and  events, 
anecdotes  gave  way  to  axioms,  and  illus- 
trations, sparingly  used,  were,  when  em- 
ployed at  all,  forcible  rather  than  humor- 
ous. 

"  If  you  think  you  can  slander  a  woman 
into  loving  you,  or  a  man  into  voting  for 
you,  try  it  till  you  are  satisfied." 

"  A  highwayman  holds  a  pistol  to  my 
ear  and  mutters  through  his  teeth,  *  Stand 
and  deliver,  or  I  shall  kill  you,  and  then 
you  will  be  a  murderer ! '  " 

"  If  I  saw  a  venomous  snake  crawling 

in  the  road,  any  man  would  say  I  might 

seize  the  nearest  stick  and  kill  it ;  but  if  I 

found  that  snake  in  bed  with  my  children, 

59 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

that  would  be  another  question.  I  might 
hurt  the  children  more  than  the  snake, 
and  it  might  bite  them."  This  was  used 
to  emphasize  his  point  that  slavery  could 
not  be  attacked  where  it  already  existed. 
"  But  if  there  was  a  bed  newly  made  up, 
to  which  the  children  were  to  be  taken,  and 
it  was  proposed  to  take  a  batch  of  young 
snakes  and  put  them  there  with  them,  I 
take  it  no  man  would  say  there  was  any 
question  how  I  ought  to  decide."  And  he 
characterized  Douglas's  policy  of  letting 
each  separate  territory  settle  the  moral 
question  for  itself,  as  "  groping  for  some 
middle  ground  between  the  right  and  the 
wrong,  vain  as  the  search  for  a  man  who 
should  be  neither  a  living  man  nor  a  dead 
man." 

Logic  and  force,  an  unassailable  array 

of  facts  presented  with  great  earnestness, 

and    infrequent    though    sometimes    grue- 

somely    pertinent    illustrations,    were    not, 

60 


HIS    DEVELOPING    POWER 

however,  the  only  elements  of  strength  in 
this  second  manner  of  Lincoln's.  It  was 
at  this  period  that  he  developed  that  power 
so  noticeable  in  his  later  utterances  of 
compressing  truth  into  short  and  ringing 
sentences,  which  seemed  to  catch  up  the 
very  spirit  of  his  argument  and  focus  it  as 
in  a  burning  glass. 

"  No  man  is  good  enough  to  govern  an- 
other man  without  that  other's  consent," 
he  said  in  one  of  the  earliest  of  these 
speeches. 

"  When  the  white  man  governs  himself, 
that  is  self-government;  but  when  he  gov- 
erns himself  and  also  governs  another  man, 
that  is  more  than  self-government  —  that 
is  despotism." 

"  No  man  can  logically  say  he  does  n't 
care  whether  a  wrong  is  voted  up  or  voted 
down."  "  He  cannot  say  people  have  a 
right  to  do  wrong." 

"  He  who  would  be  no  slave  must  con- 
61 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

sent  to  have  no  slave.  Those  who  deny 
freedom  to  others  deserve  it  not  for  them- 
selves, and  under  a  just  God,  cannot  long 
retain  it." 

"  Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes 
might,  and  in  that  faith  let  us  dare  to  do 
our  duty  as  we  understand  it."  This  last 
was  the  closing  exhortation  of  his  Cooper 
Institute  speech. 

Battle-cries  of  his  new  faith,  they  were 
charged  with  an  earnestness  ten  times  more 
impressive  than  the  sallies  of  his  earlier 
manner.  His  own  growth,  and  the  maj- 
esty of  his  theme,  were  alike  apparent.  No 
longer  merely  a  clever  speaker,  talking  for 
political  ends,  he  had  received  his  Pente- 
costal touch  of  flame  and  become  a  teacher 
—  a  leader  of  men. 


IV 


THE  START  IN  LIFE 

THOUGH  we  have  little  to  do  with 
Lincoln's  youth,  it  is  unfair  to  leave 
it  entirely  out  of  the  picture,  .since  the 
half-faced  camp  at  Pigeon  Cove  and  the 
settlements  in  Indiana  and  Illinois  where 
he  spent  his  boyhood  left  their  lasting 
trace  on  speech  and  habit.  It  was  a  life 
of  democratic  equality,  wherein  no  man 
was  much  richer  or  wiser  than  his  fellows ; 
a  life  of  open  air,  neighborly  helpfulness 
and  no  shams,  in  which  each  individual 
stood  or  fell  on  his  own  merits.  In  the 
White  House  Lincoln  continued  to  measure 
people  and  things  by  these  unsophisticated 
standards  of  personal  worth  and  useful- 
ness. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

"  Every  man  is  said  to  have  his  pe- 
culiar ambition.  Whether  it  be  true  or  not, 
I  can  say,  for  one,  that  I  have  no  other 
so  great  as  that  of  being  truly  esteemed 
of  my  fellow  men  by  rendering  myself 
worthy  of  their  esteem,"  he  wrote  at  the 
age  of  twenty-three,  in  his  first  published 
"  Address  to  the  Voters  of  Sangamon 
County."  As  a  summing  up  of  his  atti- 
tude toward  society  it  would  have  been 
equally  true  on  the  day  of  his  death.  He 
was  frankly  ambitious,  but  with  a  whole- 
some ambition,  willing  good  alike  to  him- 
self and  his  neighbor.  As  a  means  to  that 
end  he  seized  on  every  chance  bit  of  wis- 
dom that  came  his  way,  welcoming  it  as  ( 
eagerly  in  the  White  House  as  in  the  mud- 
chinked  log  cabin,  and  absorbing  it,  not 
with  a  scholar's  thirsty  love  of  learning 
for  its  own  sake,  but  for  the  purpose  it 
might  serve  later  on. 

Although  the  people  among  whom  his 
youth  was  passed  were  unlettered,  we  are 
64 


THE    START    IN    LIFE 

apt  to  dwell  with  undue  insistence  on  the 
intellectual  poverty,  as  we  do  on  the  phys- 
ical misery,  of  those  days.  In  things  of 
the  spirit  and  things  of  the  body  alike,  the 
boy  had  enough  to  nourish  and  stimulate, 
though  never  enough  to  surfeit  his  growing 
needs.  If  we  were  to  imagine  his  early 
life  an  allegorical  play,  and  write  down  as 
dramatis  personce  a  list  of  the  human  be- 
ings and  the  things  that  influenced  him,  it 
might  read  something  like  this : 

A  Father. 
A  Good  Woman. 
A  Sweetheart. 
A  Schoolmaster. 

A  Constable  who  owned  a  Law  Book. 
A  Town  Drunkard. 
A  Bully. 
A  Braggart. 
An  Indian  Chief. 
A  Voyage  down  a  Great  River. 
A  few  Good  Books. 
s  65 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

His  father,  although  not  a  worldly  suc- 
cess, was  a  man  of  good  reputation  and 
native  wit.  His  stepmother  took  the  boy 
into  her  big  warm  heart  and  gave  him  in- 
tellectual sympathy  as  well  as  physical 
comfort.  Sweet  Ann  Rutledge  whose 
early  death  plunged  Lincoln  in  such  grief, 
was  a  girl  of  greatest  purity  and 
charm;  so,  in  the  three  nearest  relation- 
ships of  life,  he  had  the  best  the  world 
can  offer. 

Mentor  Graham,  the  New  Salem  school- 
master, while  not  the  wisest  of  his  calling, 
was  learned  enough  to  help  him  to  a  knowl- 
edge of  grammar  and  surveying.  Jack 
Kelso,  disreputable  town  drunkard  though 
he  was,  had  a  love  of  Shakspere  and  Burns 
to  offset  his  love  of  drink.  Jack  Arm- 
strong, leader  of  the  Clary's  Grove  rowdies, 
fought  Lincoln,  felt  his  strength,  and 
loved  him,  to  the  lasting  good  of  both. 
Dave  Turnham,  constable,  possibly  added 
to  the  interest  of  his  "  Revised  Statutes 
66 


THE    START    IN    LIFE 

of  Indiana  "  by  the  unnecessary  ceremony 
with  which  he  surrounded  the  volume. 
Denton  Offut,  who  bragged  and  blustered, 
and  set  Lincoln  in  the  pathway  of  commer- 
cial venture  and  heavy  debt ;  James  Gentry, 
local  capitalist,  whose  substance  loaded  the 
flatboat  upon  which  the  future  emancipa- 
tor floated  down  into  the  heart  of  slavery ; 
Black  Hawk,  the  defiant  old  chief,  whose 
revolt  gave  Lincoln  his  short  experience  of 
military  service;  and  the  chorus  of  neigh- 
bors and  acquaintances  who  laughed  at 
his  boyish  stories  and  mock  speeches,  each 
had  a  share  in  building  his  character. 

As  for  the  few  books  that  fell  into  his 
hands,  blind  chance  could  never  have  flung 
together  a  collection  so  fitted  to  his  future 
needs.  The  Bible,  ^Esop's  "Fables," 
"  Robinson  Crusoe,"  "  The  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress," a  "  History  of  the  United  States," 
a  "  Life  of  Washington,"  and  Dave  Turn- 
ham's  cherished  copy  of  the  "  Revised 
Statutes  of  Indiana,"  embracing  within  its 
67 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

covers  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  Ordinance  of  1787  with  its  provision 
excluding  slavery  from  the  Northwest  Ter- 
ritory. 

In  this  small  but  fruitful  mine  he  delved 
to  good  purpose.  He  was  not  abnormal  — 
only  a  normal  boy  of  unusual  mental  gifts, 
with  a  fixed  purpose  to  succeed,  and 
blessed  with  a  stepmother  who  systemat- 
ically abetted  his  efforts  at  self-improve- 
ment. Even  his  father,  who,  owing  to  the 
family  tragedy  of  old  Abraham  Lincoln's 
death  at  the  hand  of  savages,  grew  up 
"  literally  without  education  "  and  as  his 
son  tells  us,  "  never  did  more  in  the  way 
of  writing  than  to  bunglingly  sign  his 
own  name,"  had  ambitions  for  the  lad, 
chief  of  which  was  that  he  should  learn  to 
"  cipher  clean  through  the  'rithmetic." 

So,  though  the  path  of  knowledge 
stopped  far  short  of  a  college  door,  it  was 
carefully  smoothed  for  him  inside  his  own 
68 


THE    START    IN    LIFE 

home.  "  We  took  particular  care  not  to 
disturb  him  when  he  was  reading,"  his  step- 
mother told  a  visitor  in  her  old  age ;  and 
John  Hanks,  describing  their  youth  to- 
gether, says :  "  When  Abe  and  I  returned 
to  the  house  from  work,  he  would  go  to 
the  cupboard,  snatch  a  piece  of  corn-bread, 
take  a  book,  sit  down,  cock  his  legs  up  as 
high  as  his  head,  and  read."  Not  a  grace- 
ful '  picture,  but  true  to  the  life,  and,  as 
we  are  informed  by  one  who  knew  him 
well  in  the  White  House,  a  habit  that 
stayed  with  him  all  his  days.  "  Some  of 
his  greatest  work  in  later  years  was  done 
in  this  grotesque  Western  fashion,  *  sitting 
on  his  shoulder  blades.' ' 

John  Hanks,  and  Lincoln's  stepbrother, 
John  D.  Johnston,  were  the  ones  who  might 
have  filed  objections;  for  this  humoring 
must  have  looked  very  like  favoritism  in 
the  immunity  it  gave  from  household 
chores.  However,  even  they  took  a  pride 
in  his  "  smartness,"  although  without  the 
69 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

faintest   desire  to   emulate  it,   they   lived 
and  died,  untouched  by  fame. 

Lincoln  and  Black  Hawk,  the  Indian 
Chief  in  our  imagined  list,  never  met. 
Indeed,  Lincoln's  soldiering  had  no  mili- 
tary result  whatever,  and  he  was  the  first 
to  ridicule  it  —  yet  the  episode  had  its 
bearing  on  his  whole  career.  He  once  said 
of  himself  that  he  was  like  the  Hoosier 
who  "  reckoned  he  liked  gingerbread  better 
and  got  less  of  it  than  any  man  he  knew  " ; 
and  at  the  outset  of  this  short  campaign  a 
particularly  sweet  bit  of  "  gingerbread  " 
came  to  him  in  his  unexpected  election  by 
the  men  of  his  company  to  the  honorable 
office  of  captain.  "  He  has  not  since  had 
any  success  in  life  which  gave  him  so 
much  pleasure,"  he  confessed  in  middle 
age.  Since  a  certain  amount  of  sweet  is 
good  for  soul  as  well  as  body,  this 
success  did  him  no  harm ;  while  it  was  a  far 
more  important  happening  of  the  campaign 
that  he  should  be  thrown  into  the  society  of 
70 


THE    START    IN    LIFE 

Major  John  T.  Stuart,  who  was  to  be  his 
first  law  partner. 

Lincoln's  autobiographical  notes  give,  in 
briefest  form,  the  history  of  the  next  few 
years.  "  Returning  from  the  campaign, 
and  encouraged  by  his  great  popularity 
among  his  immediate  neighbors,  he  the 
same  year  ran  for  the  legislature,  and 
was  beaten  —  his  own  precinct,  however, 
casting  its  votes  277  for  him  and  7  against 
him."  "  This,"  he  states,  "  was  the  only 
time  Abraham  was  ever  beaten  on  a  direct 
vote  of  the  people." 

Lincoln  was  so  forgetful  of  self,  that  it 
is  refreshing  occasionally  to  come  across 
perfectly  innocent  and  pardonable  traces 
of  human  vanity.  He  was  justly  proud 
of  his  place  in  the  hearts  of  the  American 
people,  and  it  gave  him  uncommon  satis- 
faction to  remember  that  with  the  excep- 
tion of  this,  his  earliest  venture  in  politics, 
they  never  failed  him  when  allowed  to  ex- 
press their  will  at  first  hand.  In  this  case 
71 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

it  would  have  been  a  miracle  had  he  suc- 
ceeded. He  announced  his  candidacy  just 
before  starting  on  the  Black  Hawk 
campaign,  after  only  a  few  months'  resi- 
dence in  the  county,  when  he  was  a  stranger 
to  practically  every  one  outside  his  own 
precinct,  and  as  he  got  back  from  the  war 
only  ten  days  before  election,  he  stood 
small  chance  against  men  of  wider  ac- 
quaintance. Two  years  later,  when  he 
tried  again,  the  result  was  different. 

The  autobiography  continues :  "  He 
was  now  without  means  and  out  of  busi- 
ness, but  was  anxious  to  remain  with  his 
friends  who  had  treated  him  with  so  much 
generosity,  especially  as  he  had  nothing 
elsewhere  to  go  to.  He  studied  what  he 
should  do  —  thought  of  learning  the  black- 
smith trade  —  thought  of  trying  to  study 
law  —  rather  thought  he  could  not  succeed 
at  that  without  a  better  education.  Before 
long,  strangely  enough,  a  man  offered  to 
sell,  and  did  sell,  to  Abraham  and  another 
72 


THE    START    IN    LIFE 

as  poor  as  himself  an  old  stock  of  goods, 
upon  credit.  They  opened  as  merchants; 
...  Of  course  they  did  nothing  but  get 
deeper  and  deeper  in  debt.  He  was  ap- 
pointed postmaster  at  New  Salem,  the  of- 
fice being  too  insignificant  to  make  his 
politics  an  objection.  The  store  winked 
out.  The  surveyor  of  Sangamon  offered 
to  depute  to  Abraham  that  portion  of  his 
work  which  was  within  his  part  of  the 
county.  He  accepted,  procured  a  compass 
and  chain,  studied  Flint  and  Gibson  a  lit- 
tle, and  went  at  it.  This  procured  bread, 
and  kept  soul  and  body  together.  The 
election  of  1834  came,  and  he  was  then 
elected  to  the  legislature  by  the  highest 
vote  cast  for  any  candidate." —  Here  again 
is  the  note  of  pride. — "  Major  John  T. 
Stuart,  then  in  full  practice  of  the  law, 
was  also  elected.  During  the  canvass,  in 
a  private  conversation,  he  encouraged 
Abraham  to  study  law.  After  the  election 
he  borrowed  books  of  Stuart,  took  them 
73 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

home  with  him,  and  went  at  it  in  good 
earnest.  He  studied  with  nobody.  He 
still  mixed  in  the  surveying  to  pay  board 
and  clothing  bills.  When  the  legislature 
met,  the  law  books  were  dropped,  but  were 
taken  up  again  at  the  end  of  the  session. 
He  was  reflected  in  1836,  1838,  and  1840. 
In  the  autumn  of  1836  he  obtained  a  law 
license,  and  on  April  15,  1837,  removed 
to  Springfield  and  commenced  the  practice 
—  his  old  friend  Stuart  taking  him  into 
partnership." 

This  election  to  the  Illinois  legislature 
was  undoubtedly  the  great  determining 
event  in  Lincoln's  life.  Had  he  lost  in- 
stead of  won,  the  world  might  have  gained 
a  blacksmith  and  lost  a  President.  His 
store  had  just  "  winked  out  " ;  he  was  heav- 
ily in  debt,  and  his  one  unreasonable 
creditor  had  attached  his  horse  and  sur- 

<jt 

veying  instruments  for  debt,  literally 
snatching  the  bread  out  of  his  mouth.  The 
four  dollars  a  day  which  Illinois  legislators 

74 


THE    START    IN    LIFE 

then  received  must  have  seemed  a  gift  from 
Heaven  —  as  it  was  a  sign  to  trust  to 
instinct  and  brain  instead  of  muscle  for 
his  future  career. 

Intellectually  it  removed  him  at  once 
from  the  dull  routine  of  village  life  to 
the  companionship  and  rivalry  of  the  keen- 
est intellects  gathered  from  all  parts  of 
the  State.  It  taxed  all  his  knowledge,  and 
confronted  him  with  new  and  absorbing 
problems. 

But  life  was  still  very  primitive,  and 
in  the  electioneering  tours  which  were  a 
feature  of  every  campaign,  social  as  well 
as  political  qualifications  went  far  with  the 
voters.  Candidates  were  expected  to  ap- 
pear at  all  sorts  of  neighborhood  gather- 
ings, and  the  man  who  was  equally 
equipped  to  turn  the  accidents  of  a  horse- 
race or  a  debate  on  the  tariff  to  his 
advantage  was  the  man  to  win. 

Lincoln  was  in  his  element  on  such  oc- 
casions. He  could  reconcile  belligerent 
75 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

patriots  with  a  joke ;  and  in  quoit  throwing 
or  impromptu  trials  of  strength  his  tact 
and  his  muscle  were  equally  valuable. 

Sometimes  opposing  candidates  met  un- 
expectedly on  these  tours  and  spent  the 
night  under  the  same  farmhouse  roof. 
Then  it  came  to  a  trial  of  wits.  One  of 
Lincoln's  opponents,  but  his  personal 
friend  (as  they  all  were),  told  how  Lincoln 
got  the  better  of  him  on  such  an  occasion. 
Milking-time  came,  and  the  other,  anxious 
to  array  the  farmer's  wife  on  his  side, 
took  stool  and  pail  from  her  hands  and 
went  to  work,  chuckling  at  the  march  he 
was  stealing.  But  when  he  finished,  he 
discovered  Lincoln  leaning  over  the  fence 
in  fruitful  idleness,  deep  in  conversation 
with  the  lady !  Then  and  afterward,  Lin- 
coln was  preeminently  a  practical  politi- 
cian. 

Not  a  tricky  politician.  Principles  in- 
variably came  first  with  him.  But  in  all 
that  is  fair  in  party  warfare,  the  shaping 
76 


THE    START    IN    LIFE 

of  issues,  the  choosing  of  candidates,  and 
that  intimate  knowledge  of  local  leader- 
ship, and  drift  of  feeling,  he  was  a  master. 
His  retentive  memory  gave  him  an  unusual 
grasp  of  political  situations,  while  his  com- 
mon sense  showed  him  ways  in  which  to 
deal  with  them  as  direct  as  they  were  novel. 
Even  .in  the  early  days  of  his  legislative 
experience  his  fellow  members  felt  this. 
"  We  would  ride  while  he  would  walk,  but 
we  recognized  him  as  a  master  of  logic." 

His  letters  on  local  political  topics  in 
Illinois  are  marvels  of  acumen  and  detail. 
He  had  tables  of  election  figures  at  his 
tongue's  end;  but  his  crowning  gift  of 
political  diagnosis  was  due  to  his  sympathy, 
strange  as  that  may  seem  —  to  his  ability 
to  imagine  himself  in  the  "  other  fellow's  " 
place  —  which  gave  him  the  power  to  fore- 
cast with  uncanny  accuracy  what  his  op- 
ponents were  likely  to  do. 

Long  after  he  left  the  legislature  he  was 
a  welcome  guest  in  its  party  caucuses. 
77 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

On  invitation  of  some  member  he  would 
enter  and  take  a  seat,  drawing  around  his 
shoulders  the  shawl  he  sometimes  wore, 
cross  his  long  legs,  clasp  his  hands  about 
his  knees,  and  listen  to  what  was  being 
said.  When  all  had  finished,  he  would 
throw  aside  the  shawl,  and  rising  slowly 
to  his  full  height,  would  begin: 

"  From  your  talk,  I  gather  the  Demo- 
crats will  do  so  and  so,"  stating  why  he 
thought  so.  "  It  seems  to  me,  if  I  were  a 
member  of  this  body,  I  should  do  so  and 
so  to  checkmate  them  " —  going  on  to  in- 
dicate the  moves  for  days  ahead;  making 
them  all  so  plain  that  his  listeners  won- 
dered why  they  had  not  seen  it  that  way 
themselves. 


78 


THE  EIGHTH  JUDICIAL,  CIRCUIT 

STRAYED  OR  STOLEN 

From  a  stable  in  Springfield  on  Wednes- 
day, 18th  inst.,  a  large  bay  horse,  star  in  his 
forehead,  plainly  marked  with  harness;  sup- 
posed to  be  eight  years  old;  had  been  shod 
all  around,  but  is  believed  to  have  lost  some 
of  his  shoes,  and  trots  and  paces.  Any  per- 
son who  will  take  up  said  horse  and  leave 
information  at  the  Journal  Office  or  with  the 
subscriber  at  New  Salem,  shall  be  liberally 
paid  for  their  trouble. 

A.  LINCOLN. 

THIS   was   a   misfortune   indeed,   for 
in  those  days  law  and  politics  were 
twin  vagabonds,  as  peripatetic  as  a  ped- 
dler's cart.    Candidates  pursued  votes  into 
79 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

remote  clearings,  and  lawyers  went  about 
their  business  on  horseback. 

The  State  was  divided  into  large  judi- 
cial districts.  The  Eighth  District,  for 
instance,  in  which  Lincoln  lived,  stretched 
from  the  Illinois  River  eastward  to  the 
Indiana  line,  and  almost  an  equal  distance 
north  and  south.  Twice  a  year  the  Circuit 
Judge,  and  such  lawyers  as  happened  to 
have  cases  before  him,  traveled  around  the 
circuit,  from  one  county  seat  to  another, 
holding  court  in  each;  and  since  Illinois 
roads  were  poor  at  best,  and  at  worst  were 
seas  of  pasty  black  mud,  horseback  riding 
was  the  most  trustworthy  means  of  loco- 
motion. 

To  Lincoln,  who  loved  the  open  air,  and 
contact  with  people,  these  long  rides,  usu- 
ally in  congenial  company,  were  very 
pleasant;  while  to  his  fellow  travelers  his 
good  spirits  and  quaint  observations  were  "• 
a  source  of  endless  delight. 

Both  bench  and  bar  seem  to  have  re- 
80 


EIGHTH   JUDICIAL  CIRCUIT 

garded  their  semi-annual  pilgrimages  in  the 
light  of  rather  gay  frolics,  echoes  of  which 
still  come  down  to  us,  usually  with  Lincoln 
as  the  central  figure  of  a  jolly  group. 
Sometimes  he  is  chuckling  over  the  ways 
of  small  boys,  or  the  family  cares  of  a 
duck  with  her  brood ;  sometimes  laughing 
heartily  at  the  antics  of  a  clothes-line  full 
of  garments  filled  out  and  set  dancing  by 
the  breeze.  Occasionally  he  rides  on, 
moody  and  silent,  eyes  and  brain  alike  busy 
with  things  far  away.  Once  he  reins  in 
his  horse  suddenly,  and  turns  back  half  a 
mile  to  pull  an  unfortunate  pig  out  of  the 
mire. —  Not  from  love  of  the  pig,  as  he 
informs  his  companions,  but  "  just  to  take 
a  pain  out  of  his  own  mind." 

But  in  spite  of  his  fund  of  fun  and  talk 
there  was  apt  to  be  a  serious  book  in  his 
scanty  luggage,  and  his  friend  Leonard 
Swett  tells  us  that  he  found  time  to  study 
"  to  the  roots  "  any  question  in  which  he 
was  at  the  moment  interested.  In  after 
6  81 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

years  he  looked  back  upon  these  circuit 
experiences  as  among  the  happiest  of  his 
life. 

"  I  guess  we  both  wish  we  were  back 
in  court  trying  cases,"  he  said  wistfully 
to  General  Butler. 

The  Eighth  Judicial  Circuit  served  as 
the  setting  for  many  of  his  anecdotes.  It 
was  on  a  stage  journey  in  pursuit  of  his 
calling  that  a  man  offered  him  a  cigar. 
Lincoln  refused  with  polite  jocularity, 
saying  that  he  "  had  no  vices."  The  man 
gave  a  scornful  grunt  and  smoked  in  si- 
lence for  a  time,  then  blurted  out,  "  It 's 
my  experience  that  men  with  no  vices  have 
plaguey  few  virtues !  " —  an  observation 
Lincoln  cherished  and  repeated  for  years. 

His  personal  habits  and  tastes  being 
of  the  simplest,  the  rough  quarters  and 
often  inadequate  accommodations  did  not 
trouble  him  in  the  least.  His  friend  Judge 
Davis  only  saw  Lincoln  angry  once  from 
such  a  cause.  That  was  when  they  ar- 
82 


EIGHTH   JUDICIAL  CIRCUIT 

rived  cold  and  wet  at  an  inn  late  one  after- 
noon, to  find  the  landlord  absent,  and  no 
wood  cut  for  a,  fire.  Lincoln  threw  off 
his  coat,  seized  an  ax,  and  chopped  vigor- 
ously for  an  hour,  while  the  Judge  labored 
with  wet  kindlings.  When  the  landlord 
returned -he  received  a  warm  but  uncomfort- 
able reception. 

Judge  Davis  took  a  far  keener  interest 
in  creature  comforts  than  Lincoln,  and  the 
latter  came  back  from  a  trip  in  his  com- 
pany, laughing  heartily  at  a  retort  this 
interest  provoked.  The  Judge  recognked 
the  difficulty  of  catering  in  remote  places, 
and  remarked  on  the  excellence  of  the 
beef.  "  You  must  have  to  kill  a  whole 
critter  when  you  want  meat  in  a  place  like 
this." 

"  Yes,"  was  the  landlord's  laconic  an- 
swer, "  we  never  kill  less  than  a  whole 
critter." 

During  "Court  Week"  each  little 
county  town  was  galvanized  into  fic- 
83 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

titious  activity.  The  Judge,  by  vir- 
tue of  his  office,  was  given  the  best 
room  in  the  flimsy  wooden  "  hotel " ; 
but  being  an  open-hearted  Westerner, 
as  well  as  an  instrument  of  justice, 
shared  it  with  from  one  to  six  of  his 
lawyer  friends.  The  rest  packed  them- 
selves into  what  space  was  left.  At  meal 
times  the  Judge  sat  at  the  head  of  a  long 
table  around  which  lawyers,  jurors,  wit- 
nesses, prisoners  out  on  bail,  peddlers,  and 
men  who  cared  for  the  teams,  crowded 
in  hungry  equality.  Food,  though  abun- 
dant, was  often  so  badly  prepared  that 
only  the  seasoning  of  wit  and  laughter  with 
which  it  was  eaten  saved  the  company 
from  early  and  dyspeptic  graves. 

After  the  meal,  those  not  busy  in  court, 
or  in  preparing  cases  for  the  morrow,  ad- 
journed to  the  public  room,  or,  carrying 
their  chairs  out  on  the  sidewalk,  tilted 
luxuriously  back  against  the  hotel,  and 
went  on  swapping  stories  and  chunks  of 
84 


EIGHTH   JUDICIAL  CIRCUIT 

political  wisdom ;  while  the  male  residents, 
and  farmers  from  the  surrounding  country, 
strolled  up  to  take  part  in  the  symposium. 

Court  Week  was  a  political  as  well  as 
a  legal  event ;  for  the  leading  lawyers  either 
were,  or  had  recently  been,  members  of  the 
legislature,  and  as  such  were  called  upon 
to  explain  the  "  loud  uninterrupted  g'roan 
of  hard  times "  which  newspapers  were 
echoing  from  one  end  of  the  continent  to 
the  other.  It  behooved  a  man  who  wished 
to  rise  either  in  law  or  in  politics,  to  be 
well  posted  and  alert.  Lincoln,  who  was 
witty,  and  a  good  talker  besides,  was  sure 
of  enthusiastic  greetings  wherever  he  went. 
"  He  brought  light  with  him,"  says  one 
writer.  No  wonder.  He  was  as  ready  to 
listen  as  to  talk;  never  talked  about  his 
own  troubles ;  and  never  asked  for  help, 
though  always  ready  to  give  it. 

In  the  court  room  he  strove  to  divest  a 
case  of  every  question  except  the  vital 
one,  giving  away  point  after  point  to  his 
85 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

opponent  until  he  came  to  the  one  he 
deemed  essential,  and  taking  his  stand  on 
that.  "  In  law  it  is  good  policy  never  to 
plead  what  you  need  not,  lest  you  oblige 
yourself  to  prove  what  you  cannot,"  was 
one  of  his  maxims.  He  talked  to  a  jury 
as  he  spoke  to  an  audience,  in  a  kindly 
direct  way,  using  the  subtle  flattery  of 
making  them  feel  that  they  themselves  were 
really  trying  the  case;  that  he  was  merely 
helping  them  to  formulate  what  they  had 
long  believed.  He  spoke  very  clearly  and 
deliberately,  using  few  gestures,  until  some 
anecdote  became  applicable,  when  he  told  it 
with  rare  dramatic  force. 

Knowing  the  necessity  of  holding  atten- 
tion, he  employed  language  so  simple  that 
the  dullest  juryman  could  follow  him; 
and  for  the  same  reason  he  rarely  spoke 
from  notes.  "  Notes  are  a  bother,  taking 
time  to  make,  and  more  to  hunt  up  after- 
ward," he  told  a  law  student ;  adding  that 
the  habit  of  referring  to  them  was  apt  to 
86 


EIGHTH   JUDICIAL  CIRCUIT 

grow  upon  one,  and  always  tended  to  tire 
and  confuse  the  listeners.  Notes  that  he 
used  in  a  case  involving  the  pension  of  a 
bent  and  crippled  widow  of  a  Revolution- 
ary soldier -are  certainly  not  prolix  enough 
to  distract  a  jury. 

"  No  contract. —  Not  professional  serv- 
ices.—  Unreasonable  charge. —  Money  re- 
tained by  Deft  not  given  by  Pl'ff. — 
Revolutionary  War. —  Describe  Valley 
Forge  privations. —  Ice. —  Soldier's  bleed- 
ing feet. —  Pl'ff's  husband. —  Soldier  leav- 
ing home  for  army. —  Skim  Deft. — 
Close." 

For  the  same  excellent  reason  he  rarely 
used  a  Latin  word.  He  felt  that  the  aver- 
age juryman  could  not  follow  high-flown 
language  in  his  native  tongue,  let  alone  in 
a  dead  language,  and  he  preferred  to  talk 
with  him,  man  to  man.  A  colleague  who 
relied  on  different  methods  once  quoted  a 
legal  maxim  and  turned  to  him  asking, 
"  Is  n't  that  so,  Mr.  Lincoln?  " 
87 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

"  If  that  is  Latin,  you  had  better  call 
another  witness,"  he  answered,  with  a  touch 
of  shortness  which  recalls  his  confession 
that  from  childhood  it  irritated  him  to  hear 
people  talk  in  a  way  he  could  not  under- 
stand. He  had  little  jpatience  with  men 
who  obscured,  or  tried  to  obscure,  their 
own  trail.  It  reminded  him,  he  said,  of  a 
little  Frenchman  out  West  during  the 
"  winter  of  the  deep  snow,"  whose  "  legs 
were  so  short  that  the  seat  of  his  trousers 
rubbed  out  his  footprints  as  he  walked." 

Secretary  Usher  has  said  that  Lincoln 
belonged  to  the  reasoning  class  of  men. 
"  As  a  lawyer  he  never  claimed  everything 
for  his  client.  .  .  .  He  was  also  very 
careful  about  giving  personal  offense,  and 
if  he  had  something  severe  to  say,  he  would 
turn  to  his  opponent,  or  to  the  person  about 
to  be  referred  to,  and  say,  *  I  don't  like  to 
use  this  language,'  or,  *  I  am  sorry  that  I 
have  to  be  hard  on  that  gentleman,'  and 
therefore,  what  he  did  say,  was  thrice  as  ef- 
88 


EIGHTH  JUDICIAL  CIRCUIT 

fective,  and  very  seldom  wounded  the  per- 
son attacked." 

His  way  with  witnesses  was  quite  mar- 
velous. Even  if  hostile  at  the  outset,  they 
soon  came  under  his  spell  and  ended  by 
wanting  to  please  him.  A  boy  who  was 
subprenaed  in  a  case  against  his  uncle,  told 
how  he  went  on  the  stand  determined  to 
say  as  little  as  possible.  On  learning  his 
name  Mr.  Lincoln  began  asking  questions. 
—  "  Was  he  related  to  his  old  friend  ?  " 
who  happened  to  be  the  boy's  grandfather. 
The  tall  lawyer  showed  such  friendly  inter- 
.est  that  before  he  knew  it,  the  little  witness 
was  pouring  out  the  whole  story.  He  re- 
tired covered  with  shame,  feeling  he  had 
been  most  disloyal;  but  outside  the  court- 
room door  Lincoln  met  him,  looked  at  him 
kindly,  and  stopped  to  say  that  he  under- 
stood —  he  knew  he  had  not  meant  to  tes- 
tify against  his  people,  but  he  had  done 
right  in  telling  all  he  knew,  and  nobody 
could  criticize  him  for  it.  "  The  whole 
89 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

matter  was  afterwards  adjusted,"  the  lit- 
tle story  ends,  "  but  I  never  forgot  his 
friendly  and  encouraging  words  at  a  time 
when  I  needed  sympathy  and  consolation." 

Lincoln  carried  his  love  of  fair  play  into 
every  detail  of  his  profession.  "  Yes,"  he 
said  to  a  man  who  sought  to  retain  him  in 
a  questionable  suit.  "  There  is  no  reason- 
able doubt  but  that  I  can  gain  your  case 
for  you.  I  can  set  a  whole  neighborhood 
at  loggerheads ;  I  can  distress  a  widowed 
mother  and  her  six  fatherless  children,  and 
thereby  gain  for  you  six  hundred  dollars, 
which  rightfully  belongs,  it  appears  to  me, 
as  much  to  them  as  it  does  to  you.  I  shall 
not  take  your  case,  but  I  will  give  you  a 
little  advice  for  nothing.  You  seem  a 
sprightly  energetic  man.  I  would  advise 
you  to  try  your  hand  at  making  six  hun- 
dred dollars  in  some  other  way." 

After  Lincoln's  death  some  notes,  evi- 
dently intended  for  a  lecture  to  law  stu- 
dents, were  found  among  his  papers. 
90 


EIGHTH   JUDICIAL  CIRCUIT 

"  Discourage  litigation,"  said  one  of  these. 
"  Persuade  your  neighbors  to  compromise 
whenever  you  can.  Point  out  to  them  how 
the  nominal  winner  is  often  a  real  loser  — 
in  fees,  expenses,  and  waste  of  time.  As  a 
peacemaker  the  lawyer  has  a  superior  op- 
portunity of  being  a  good  man.  There 
will  still  be  business  enough." 

Yet  he  occasionally  allowed  himself  the 
luxury  of  offering  his  services.  In  the 
Armstrong  murder  trial,  the  most  dramatic 
of  all  his  cases,  he  defended  the  accused  for 
the  love  he  bore  his  parents  —  a  friendship 
dating  from  the  day  Jack  Armstrong,  the 
bully  of  Clary's  Grove,  fought  the  tall 
stranger  who  had  come  to  live  in  New 
Salem,  and  felt  his  strength. 

Joseph  Jefferson,  writing  of  his  child- 
hood, tells  how  in  1839  his  father  went  to 
Springfield,  and  relying  on  the  patronage 
of  the  legislature,  prepared  to  stay  all 
winter.  He  built  a  little  wooden  theater, 
but  scarcely  was  it  opened,  when  a  revival 
91 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

began  in  town,  and  excited  church  members 
had  the  poor  little  playhouse  taxed  out  of 
existence.  "  In  the  midst  of  our  trouble  a 
young  lawyer  called  upon  the  management. 
He  had  heard  of  the  injustice,  and  offered, 
if  they  would  place  the  matter  in  his  hands, 
to  have  the  license  taken  off,  declaring  that 
he  only  desired  to  see  fair  play,  and  would 
accept  no  fee,  whether  he  failed  or  suc- 
ceeded." 

When  the  matter  came  to  a  hearing  he 
made  an  elaborate  argument,  covering  the 
history  of  acting  from  antiquity  down, 
handling  his  subject  —  and  his  town  coun- 
cil —  with  such  skill  that  the  tax  was  re- 
moved. Lincoln  was  fond  of  the  play,  and 
his  championship  loses  nothing  in  human 
interest  from  the  fact  that  these  were  prob- 
ably the  first  good  actors  it  had  been  his 
fortune  to  see;  and  that  he  anticipated  a 
world  of  delight  within  its  walls  if  the  little 
wooden  theater  was  allowed  to  remain. 

Judge  David  Davis,  speaking  of  Lin- 
92 


EIGHTH   JUDICIAL  CIRCUIT 

coin's  rank  as  a  lawyer,  says :  "  In  all  the 
elements  that  constitute  the  great  lawyer  he 
had  few  equals.  .  .  .  He  seized  the  strong 
points  of  a  cause,  and  presented  them  with 
clearness  and  great  compactness.  His 
mind  was  logical  and  direct,  and  he  did  not 
indulge  in  extraneous  discussion.  General- 
ities and  platitudes  had  no  charms  for  him. 
An  unfailing  vein  of  humor  never  deserted 
him  ;  and  he  was  able  to  claim  the  attention 
of  court  and  jury  when  the  cause  was  the 
most  uninteresting,  by  the  appropriate- 
ness of  his  anecdotes."  An  Eastern  lawyer 
once  expressed  the  opinion  that  Lincoln  was 
wasting  his  time  in  telling  stories  to  a  jury. 
"  Don't  lay  that  flattering  unction  to  your 
soul,"  was  his  friend's  rejoinder.  "  Lin- 
coln is  like  Tansey's  horse,  he  '  breaks  to 
win.' " 

"  The    framework    of   his    mental    and 

moral  being  was  honesty,"  Judge  Davis 

continues,  "  and  a  wrong  cause  was  poorly 

defended  by  him.     The  ability  which  some 

93 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

eminent  lawyers  possess,  of  explaining 
away  the  bad  points  of  a  cause  by  ingenious 
sophistry,  was  denied  him.  In  order  to 
bring  into  full  activity  his  great  powers,  it 
was  necessary  that  he  should  be  convinced 
of  the  right  and  justice  of  the  matter  which 
he  advocated.  When  so  convinced,  whether 
the  matter  was  great  or  small,  he  was  usu- 
ally successful." 

"  There  is  a  vague  popular  belief  that 
lawyers  are  necessarily  dishonest,"  Lincoln 
wrote  in  his  notes  for  a  law  lecture.  "  I 
say  vague,  because  when  we  consider  to 
what  extent  confidence  and  honors  are  re- 
posed in  and  conferred  upon  lawyers  by  the 
people,  it  appears  improbable  that  their 
impression  of  dishonesty  is  very  distinct 
and  vivid.  Yet  the  impression  is  common, 
almost  universal.  Let  no  young  man 
choosing  the  law  for  a  calling  for  a  moment 
yield  to  the  popular  belief  —  resolve  to  be 
honest  at  all  events;  and  if  in  your  own 
judgment  you  cannot  be  an  honest  lawyer, 
94 


EIGHTH  JUDICIAL  CIRCUIT 

resolve  to  be  honest  without  being  a  law- 
yer. Choose  some  other  occupation, 
rather  than  the  one  in  the  choosing  of 
which  you  do,  in  advance,  consent  to  be  a 
knave." 

He  never  took  a  case  which  appeared  to 
him  unjust,  and  if  he  found  out  that  he 
had  been  mistaken,  it  was  only  with  the 
greatest  effort  that  he  could  make  himself 
go  on  with  it. 

"  Swett,"  he  exclaimed  on  one  occasion, 
turning  to  his  associate,  "  the  man  is  guilty. 
You  defend  him.  I  can't."  Another  time 
he  said  to  the  lawyer  engaged  with  him, 
"  If  you  can  say  anything  for  the  man,  do 
it.  If  I  attempt  it  the  jury  will  see  that*! 
think  he  is  guilty  and  convict  him."  On 
still  another  occasion,  being  suddenly  con- 
fronted with  proof  that  his  client  was  at- 
tempting fraud,  he  walked  out  of  the  court 
room  and  went  to  his  hotel  in  deep  disgust. 
The  Judge  sent  a  messenger  to  request  his 
return.  He  refused. 
95 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

"  Tell  the  Judge,"  he  said,  "  that  my 
hands  are  dirty.  I  came  over  to  wash 
them." 

"  Perversely  honest "  was  the  verdict, 
half  resentful,  and  wholly  admiring,  passed 
upon  him  by  his  fellow  lawyers. 


96 


VI 

LINCOLN'S  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  MONEY 

PAINFULLY  honest  also  he  was  in 
money  matters.  Tradition  has  it 
that  his  initial  experience  in  the  value  of 
money  lay  in  being  made  to  pull  fodder 
three  whole  days  at  twenty-five  cents  a 
day,  to  pay  for  a  rain-soaked  volume.  He 
had  borrowed  the  book.  It  got  wet.  He 
payed  the  price  of  carelessness  in  back- 
breaking  toil ;  but  after  that  the  book  was 
his  very  own.  "  This  is  a  world  of  com- 
pensation," as  he  wrote  some  forty  years 
later. 

He    told    Secretary     Seward    that    he 
earned  his  first  dollar  by  taking  two  trav- 
elers and  their  luggage  out  from  the  river 
7  97 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

edge  to  a  steamboat  which  stopped  for 
them,  Western  fashion,  in  midstream.  For 
this  service  each  man  threw  a  silver  half- 
dollar  into  the  bottom  of  the  boat,  where 
they  shone  very  large  and  fair  as  he  rowed 
ashore. 

The  frontier  value  of  money  differed 
from  ours.  As  a  symbol  it  meant  more,  as 
a  commodity,  less.  It  stood  for  the  world 
the  pioneer  had  left  behind  him,  and  all  he 
wished  to  gain,  but  its  momentary  purchas- 
ing power  was  strangely  limited.  A  rifle 
and  a  strong  right  arm  could  supply  more 
of  his  immediate  needs  than  any  amount  of 
gold. 

This  fostered  an  undefined  feeling  that 
money  was  after  all  a  fantastic,  rather  than 
a  real  thing,  and  accounts  for  certain  loose 
ideas  about  money  obligations  which  pre- 
vailed. For  instance,  in  the  burst  of  confi- 
dence and  exchange  of  promissory  notes 
which  inaugurated  Lincoln's  venture  as  a 
merchant,  not  a  cent  of  money  saw  the 
98 


ATTITUDE   TOWARD   MONEY 

light,  though  signatures  and  I.  O.  U.'s  were 
dealt  around  among  half  a  dozen  men,  like  a 
hand  at  cards.  Death,  drink,  and  defalca- 
tion cast  their  consuming  blight  on  all  the 
other  parties  to  the  transaction,  and  the 
whole  indebtedness,  amounting  to* six  or 
seven  hundred  dollars,  came  finally  to  rest 
upon  Lincoln's  shoulders.  Instead  of  fol- 
lowing the  prevailing  fashion,  taking  to  his 
heels,  or  claiming  that  failure  wiped  out  the 
debt,  he  assumed  the  load,  promising  to  pay 
when  he  could. 

His  neighbors,  remembering  how  he  had 
tramped  miles  to  make  restitution  of  six 
and  a  quarter  cents,  and  had  pursued  a  cus- 
tomer with  a  few  ounces  of  tea  after  inad- 
vertently giving  short  measure,  felt  that  he 
took  money  obligations  with  sufficient  seri- 
ousness, and  agreed  to  wait.  Seventeen 
years  later,  long  after  "  Honest  Old  Abe  " 
had  become  a  household  word  in  all  Sanga- 
mon  County,  he  paid  the  last  fraction  of 
what  he  called  his  "  National  Debt." 
99 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

The  two  pieces  of  good  fortune  men- 
tioned in  his  autobiography,  being  made 
deputy  surveyor  of  Sangamon  County,  and 
postmaster  of  New  Salem,  happened  provi- 
dentially at  this  time.  Both  were  tributes 
to  his  personal  worth,  not  to  his  politics,  for 
John  Calhoun,  the  surveyor,  was  an  ardent 
Democrat,  and  New  Salem,  except  when 
Lincoln  was  running  for  the  legislature, 
voted  systematically  against  the  Whigs. 

The  only  obstacle  to  his  becoming  Cal- 
houn's  deputy  lay  in  his  abysmal  ignorance 
of  surveying  —  a  detail  which  Calhoun 
promptly  overcame  by  lending  him  a  text- 
book, which  he  as  promptly  took  to  his 
schoolmaster  friend  Mentor  Graham.  Six 
weeks  later,  haggard  from  application,  but 
equipped  for  his  new  duties,  he  presented 
himself  again  before  Calhoun. 

He  was  made  postmaster  in  May,  1833, 

and  kept  the  situation  about  three  years, 

until  New  Salem's  population  shrank  to 

such  insignificance  that  a  postmaster  was  a 

100 


ATTITUDE   TOWARD  MONEY 

needless  luxury.  Popular  fable  locates  the 
office  "  in  his  hat."  Its  principal  perqui- 
site was  the  privilege  of  reading  the  news- 
papers addressed  to  it  —  newspapers  filled 
at  that  time  with  the  debates  of  Webster, 
and  Lincoln's  boyhood  idol,  Henry  Clay. 

With  postage  at  twenty-five  cents,  a  lit- 
tle actual  cash  also  passed  through  his 
hands,  and  this  must  have  been  gratifying 
in  his  state  of  poverty,  even  though  it  be- 
longed to  the  Government.  How  sharp  a 
line  he  drew  between  Government  property 
and  his  own  came  to  light  a  number  of 
years  later,  when  an  agent  of  the  Postoffice 
Department  called  on  him  in  Springfield  to 
ask  for  a  balance  of  about  seventeen  dollars 
due  from  the  defunct  New  Salem  office. 
After  an  instant's  hesitation  he  rose,  and 
going  to  a  little  trunk  in  a  corner,  took 
from  it  a  cotton  cloth  in  which  the  exact 
sum  was  tied  up.  A  friend  who  saw  his 
face  as  the  agent  made  his  request,  had 
hastily  offered  a  loan.  "  I  never  use  any 
101 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

man's  money  but  my  own,"  Lincoln  said 
quietly,  after  the  officer  took  his  departure. 

That  he  had  kept  it  through  all  those 
years  of  poverty,  tied  up  in  the  quaint  little 
original  package,  was  profoundly  charac- 
teristic. His  methods  of  dealing  with  cash 
were  as  simple  as  his  honesty  was  strict. 
In  his  lawyer  days  he  wrote,  "  This  is 
Herndon's  half,"  in  his  careful  legible  hand 
upon  an  envelope  and  put  into  it  one  part 
of  a  joint  fee,  while  the  other  went  into  his 
own  pocket.  That  was  all  he  felt  called 
upon  to  do.  The  firm,  of  course,  kept 
books,  but  he  was  rarely  moved  to  make  an 
entry  in  them.  When  his  inconvenient 
sense  of  honesty  rendered  it  impossible  for 
him  to  go  on  with  a  case,  the  other  "  half  " 
followed  the  first  into  his  partner's  en- 
velope. 

Judge  Davis  wrote  of  him :     "  To  his 

honor  be  it  said,  that  he  never  took  from  a 

client,  even  when  his  cause  was  gained,  more 

than  he  thought  the  services  were  worth  and 

102 


ATTITUDE   TOWARD  MONEY 

the  client  could  reasonably  afford  to  pay. 
The  people  where  he  practised  law  were  not 
rich,  and  his  charges  were  always  small. 
When  he  was  elected  President,  I  question 
whether  there  was  a  lawyer  in  the  circuit, 
who  had  been  at  the  bar  so  long  a  time, 
whose  means  were  not  larger.  It  did  not 
seem  to  be  one  of  the  purposes  of  his  life  to 
accumulate  a  fortune.  In  fact,  outside  of 
his  profession,  he  had  no  knowledge  of  the 
way  to  make  money,  and  he  never  even  at- 
tempted it." 

"  You  are  pauperizing  this  court," 
Judge  Davis  used  to  tell  him.  "  You  are 
ruining  your  fellows.  Unless  you  quit  this 
ridiculous  policy  we  shall  all  have  to  go  to 
farming."  But  Lincoln  went  on  serenely 
charging  as  he  saw  fit.  Once  his  bill  was 
$3.50  for  collecting  a  note  of  nearly  $600  ; 
but  politics  and  professional  courtesy  were 
involved,  and  another  man  made  the  actual 
collection.  A  client  who  owed  him  for  pro- 
fessional services  met  with  financial  re- 
103 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

verses,  and  soon  after  lost  his  hand.  Lin- 
coln returned  his  note,  saying,  "  If  you  had 
the  money  I  would  not  take  it." 

The  largest  fee  he  ever  received  was  in 
the  contest  between  the  Illinois  Central 
Railroad  and  McLean  County  over  certain 
taxes  alleged  to  be  due  from  the  railroad. 
After  litigation  covering  two  years  Lincoln 
won  the  case.  He  presented  a  bill  for 
$2,000  which  the  railroad  refused  to  pay 
on  the  ground  that  it  was  excessive. 
Whereupon  half  a  dozen  of  his  lawyer 
friends  signed  a  statement  that  in  their 
opinion  $5,000  would  be  a  moderate 
charge;  and  he  sued  the  railroad  for  that 
sum  and  got  it.  The  story  that  George  B. 
McClellan  was  the  man  who  refused  the 
original  bill  with  the  slighting  remark, 
"  That  is  as  much  as  a  first-class  lawyer 
would  have  charged,"  is  manifestly  untrue, 
since  McClellan  was  not  an  officer  of  the 
road,  and  not  even  in  this  country  at  the 
104 


ATTITUDE   TOWARD  MONEY 

time.  Parenthetically  it  is  interesting  to 
be  told  by  competent  authority  that  the 
same  services  would  now  command  a  fee  of 
$50,000. 

In  the  McCormick  Reaper  case,  about 
which  much  has  been  written  to  explain  and 
recount  his  first  rather  unfortunate  meet- 
ing with  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  the  fee  was 
about  $2,000.  Both  of  these,  coming  to 
him  near  the  time  of  his  joint  debate  with 
Douglas,  helped  tide  over  that  period  of  in- 
creasing fame  and  decreased  earnings.  In 
the  decade  between  1850  and  1860  his  in- 
come is  said  to  have  rarely  reached  $3,000 
a  year.  Before  that  time  it  was  very  much 
less. 

"  The  matter  of  fees  is  important,"  he 
wrote  in  his  notes  for  a  law  lecture,  "  far 
beyond  the  mere  question  of  bread  and  but- 
ter involved."  It  was  their  moral  impor- 
tance he  had  in  mind.  "  Properly  attended 
to,  fuller  justice  is  done  to  both  lawyer  and 
105 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

client."     In  his  theory  of  money,  as  in  his 
theory  of  life,  honesty  was  paramount. 

"  Don't  you  think  I  have  honestly  earned 
twenty-five  dollars  ?  "  he  asked  the  pair  of 
opposing  lawyers  who  were  to  fix  the 
amount  of  the  fee  in  a  case  which  had  gone 
against  him.  They  expected  to  allow  him 
at  least  one  hundred. 

As  Judge  Davis  said,  it  did  not  seem  to 
be  one  of  the  purposes  of  his  life  to  accu- 
mulate a  fortune.  He  said  that  a  house  in 
Springfield,  such  as  he  owned,  and  twenty 
thousand  dollars,  which  he  hoped  to  earn 
before  his  working  days  were  over,  were 
"  all  that  a  man  ought  to  want." 

But  he  had  no  patience  with  the  sin  of 
shiftlessness,  no  matter  how  patient  he 
might  be  with  the  sinner.  His  letters  to  his 
stepbrother,  John  D.  Johnston,  who  was 
born  with  a  genius  for  remaining  in  debt, 
and  was  always  asking  help,  were  as  un- 
compromisingly truthful  as  they  were  gen- 
erous. In  one  of  them  he  wrote : 
106 


ATTITUDE   TOWARD  MONEY 

Your  request  for  eighty  dollars  I  do  not 
think  it  best  to  comply  with  now.  At  the 
various  times  when  I  have  helped  you  a  little 
you  have  said  to  me,  '  We  can  get  along  very 
well  now ' ;  but  in  a  very  short  time  I  find 
you  in  the  same  difficulty  again.  Now,  this 
can  only  happen  by  some  defect  in  your  con- 
duct. -What  that  defect  is,  I  think  I  know. 
You  are  not  lazy,  and  still  you  are  an  idler. 
I  doubt  whether,  since  I  saw  you,  you  have 
done  a  good  whole  day's  work,  in  any  one 
day.  You  do  not  very  much  dislike  to  work, 
and  still  you  do  not  work  much,  merely  be- 
cause it  does  not  seem  to  you  that  you  could 
get  much  for  it.  This  habit  of  uselessly 
wasting  time  is  the  whole  difficulty;  it  is 
vastly  important  to  you,  and  still  more  so  to 
your  children,  that  you  should  break  the 
habit.  .  .  .  You  are  now  in  need  of  some 
money;  and  what  I  propose  is,  that  you  shall 
go  to  work,  '  tooth  and  nail '  for  somebody 
who  will  give  you  money  for  it.  Let  father 
and  your  boys  take  charge  of  your  things  at 
home,  prepare  for  a  crop  and  make  the  crop, 
and  you  go  to  work  for  the  best  money  wages, 
107 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

or  in  discharge  of  any  debt  you  owe,  that 
you  can  get;  and,  to  secure  you  a  fair  re- 
ward for  your  labor,  I  now  promise  you,  that 
for  every  dollar  you  will,  between  this  and 
the  first  of  May,  get  for  your  own  labor,  either 
in  money  or  as  your  own  indebtedness,  I  will 
give  you  one  other  dollar.  By  this,  if  you 
hire  yourself  at  ten  dollars  a  month,  from 
me  you  will  get  ten  more,  making  twenty 
dollars  a  month  for  your  work.  In  this  I  do 
not  mean  you  shall  go  off  to  St.  Louis,  or 
the  lead  mines,  or  the  gold  mines  in  Cali- 
fornia, but  I  mean  for  you  to  go  at  it  for 
the  best  wages  you  can  get  close  to  home  in 
Coles  County.  Now  if  you  will  do  this  you 
will  soon  be  out  of  debt,  and,  what  is  better, 
you  will  have  a  habit  that  will  keep  you  from 
getting  in  debt  again.  But,  if  I  should  now 
clear  you  out  of  debt,  next  year  you  would  be 
just  as  deep  in  as  ever.  You  say  you  would 
almost  give  your  place  in  Heaven  for  seventy 
or  eighty  dollars.  Then  you  value  your  place 
in  Heaven  very  cheap,  for  I  am  sure  you 
can,  with  the  offer  I  make,  get  the  seventy 
or  eighty  dollars  for  four  or  five  months' 
108 


ATTITUDE   TOWARD   MONEY 

work.  You  say  if  I  will  furnish  you  the 
money  you  will  deed  me  the  land,  and,  if  you 
don't  pay  the  money  back,  you  will  deliver 
possession.  Nonsense!  If  you  can't  now 
live  with  the  land,  how  will  you  then  live 
without  it?  You  have  always  been  kind  to 
me,  and  I  do  not  mean  to  be  unkind  to  you. 
On  the  contrary,  if  you  will  but  follow  my 
advice,  you  will  find  it  worth  more  than 
eighty  times  eighty  dollars  to  you. 

He  watched  over  and  cared  for  the  inter- 
ests of  his  father  and  stepmother  with  the 
same  spirit,  and  against  similar  discourag- 
ing odds ;  and  as  he  grew  in  fame,  not  only 
family  letters,  ill-spelt,  and  more  fluent 
than  logical,  but  letters  from  old  neighbors, 
breathing  patriotism  and  incompetence, 
came  with  their  pleas  for  aid,  and  were  met 
in  his  old  neighborly  fashion.  Here  is  one 
message  which  he  sent  out  into  the  world : 

My  old  friend  Henry  Chew,  the  bearer  of 
this,  is  in  a  strait  for  some  furniture  to  com- 
mence   housekeeping.     If    any    person    will 
109 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

furnish  him  twenty-five  dollars  worth,  and  he 
does  not  pay  for  it  by  the  1st  of  January 
next,  I  will.  A.  LINCOLN. 

He  did.  But  sometimes  bread  cast 
upon  the  waters  returned  in  its  original 
form.  An  express  company's  envelope 
was  found  among  his  papers,  bearing  this 
endorsement : 

September  25,  1858. 

This  brought  me  fifteen  dollars  without 
any  intimation  as  to  wliere  it  came  from.  It 
probably  came  from  Mr.  Patterson,  to  whom 
I  loaned  this  amount  a  few  days  ago. 

LINCOLN. 

During  his  service  in  the  legislature  his 
campaign  expenses  were  small  enough  to 
satisfy  the  most  exacting.  On  one  occa- 
sion the  Whigs  contributed  the  sum  of  $200 
toward  his  personal  expenses.  At  the  end 
of  the  canvass  he  handed  his  friend  Joshua 
F.  Speed  $199.25  with  the  request  that  it 
be  returned  to  the  subscribers.  "  I  did  not 
110 


ATTITUDE   TOWARD  MONEY 

need  the  money,"  he  said.  "  I  made  the 
canvass  on  my  own  horse;  my  entertain- 
ment, being  at  the  houses  of  friends,  cost 
me  nothing,  and  my  only  outlay  was  sev- 
enty-five cents  for  a  barrel  of  cider  which 
some  farm-hands  insisted  I  should  treat 
them  to." 

Railroad  passes  were  not  regarded  with 
the  same  covetous  suspicion,  then  as  now, 
and  an  amusing  note  shows  his  most  origi- 
nal way  of  asking  for  a  renewal. 

SPRINGFIELD,  ILL.,  Feb.  13,  1836. 
R.  P.  Morgan,  Esq. 

DEAR  SIR  :  Says  Tom  to  John,  "  Here  's 
your  old  rotten  wheelbarrow.  I  've  broke  it, 
usen  'on  it.  I  wish  you  would  mend  it,  'case 
I  shall  want  to  borrow  it  this  afternoon." 

Acting  on  this  precedent,  I  say,  "  Here  's 
your  old  *  chalked  hat.'  I  wish  you  would 
take  it  and  send  me  a  new  one,  'case  I  shall 
want  to  use  it  the  first  of  March." 

Yours  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 
Ill 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

A  letter  to  his  friend  N.  B.  Judd,  writ- 
ten shortly  after  Douglas's  victory,  reveals 
the  fact  that  his  private  subscription  to 
the  Republican  campaign  fund  in  1858  was 
$500.  Unlike  Douglas,  he  paid  his  own 
ordinary  expenses  during  the  canvass, 
"  Which,  being  added  to  my  loss  of  time 
and  business,  bears  pretty  heavily  upon  one 
no  better  off  in  this  world's  goods  than  I; 
but  as  I  had  the  post  of  honor,  it  is  not  for 
me  to  be  over-nice." 

He  was  bitterly  attacked  by  the  New 
York  Herald  for  accepting  a  check  for 
$200  for  the  famous  Cooper  Institute 
speech.  No  public  notice  was  taken  of  it, 
but  he  was  sufficiently  distressed  to  write  a 
private  letter  denying  that  he  ever  charged 
anything  for  a  political  speech  in  his  life, 
and  giving  the  full  history  of  the  half 
truth  on  which  the  accusation  was  based. 

Having  simple  tastes,  he  managed  to 
save  something  from  his  official  salary, 
which  few  Presidents  have  been  able  to  do ; 
112 


ATTITUDE   TOWARD  MONEY 

but  this  was  not  by  virtue  of  changing  any 
of  his  habits  in  regard  to  money  getting  or 
giving.  The  cashier  of  one  of  the  Wash- 
ington banks,  meeting  an  old  friend  of  Mr. 
Lincoln's  on  the  street  one  morning,  re- 
marked "  that  President  of  yours  is  the 
oddest  man  alive.  Why,  he  endorses  notes 
for  niggers ! " 

At  the  time  Lincoln  entered  the  White 
House,  Government  credit  was  at  a  peril- 
ously low  ebb.  Buchanan's  last  two  Secre- 
taries of  the  Treasury  found  difficulty  in 
borrowing  even  small  sums  at  high  interest 
to  meet  Government  expenses.  The  Civil 
War  immediately  created  new  and  insistent 
demands  upon  the  Treasury,  which  ex- 
panded as  the  months  went  by  into  financial 
operations  greater  than  ever  before  re- 
corded. Lincoln's  crystalline  simplicity  in 
money  matters  seemed  hardly  fitted  to  cope 
with  such  a  situation ;  nor  did  his  choice  of 
his  Presidential  rival,  Salmon  P.  Chase,  a 
man  of  little  previous  financial  experience, 
8  113 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

for  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  seem  neces- 
sarily reassuring.  But  the  good  genius 
which  watches  over  our  country  was  never 
more  active.  This  is  not  the  place  to  re- 
capitulate Secretary  Chase's  resourceful 
and  masterly  skill  in  upholding  our  credit 
at  home  and  abroad;  a  management  which 
Evarts  called  "  the  marvel  of  Europe  and 
the  admiration  of  our  own  people." 

Lincoln,  realizing  the  worth  of  Mr. 
Chase's  services,  as  well  as  his  own  inex- 
perience, exercised  less  constant  supervision 
over  the  Treasury  than  over  some  of  the 
other,  departments.  He  made  occasional 
suggestions,  but  did  not  insist  upon  them ; 
and  when  Mr.  Chase  needed  the  weight  of 
his  assistance  with  Congress,  either  in  mes- 
sages, or  in  conversation  with  individuals, 
gave  it  effectively  and  ungrudgingly. 

In  the  fight  to  make  paper  money  legal 

tender  both  men  advocated  it  as  a  measure 

of  necessity,  not  choice ;  and  worked  for  it 

with  unwearying  devotion.     A  paragraph 

114 


ATTITUDE   TOWARD  MONEY 

in  John  Hay's  diary  quotes  Lincoln  as 
saying  that  he  "  thought  Chase's  banking 
system  rested  on  a  sound  basis  of  princi- 
ple ;  that  is,  causing  the  capital  of  the  coun- 
try to  become  interested  in  the  sustaining  of 
the  national  credit.  That  was  the  princi- 
pal financial  measure  of  Mr.  Chase  in  which 
he  (Lincoln)  had  taken  an  especial  inter- 
est." 

The  two  were  officially  in  perfect  accord, 
but  politically  Chase  was  ambitious  on  his 
own  account,  and  personally  he  could  never 
understand  his  chief,  whose  whimsical  re- 
marks and  Western  ways  seemed  to  him  dis- 
tressingly undignified. 

Mr.  Chase  came  to  him  one  day  with  a 
report  on  the  vast  sums  of  paper  currency 
already  issued,  and  the  sums  still  needed 
to  pay  the  soldiers  and  carry  on  the  Gov- 
ernment. At  the  end  of  the  dismal  recital 
he  stopped  as  if  to  say,  "  What  can  be 
done  about  it?  "  Lincoln  with  a  flicker  of 
perplexity,  and  another  of  amusement 
115 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

crossing  his  sad  face,  looked  down  on  his 
shorter  companion  and  answered,  "  Well, 
Mr.  Secretary,  I  don't  know,  unless  you 
give  your  paper  mill  another  turn."  At 
which  levity  Chase  almost  swore,  and  de- 
parted in  high  dudgeon. 


116 


VII 

A    NEW    CANDIDATE 

JOHN  HAY'S  first  recollection  of  Lin- 
coln was  of  seeing  him  hurry  into  the 
office  of  his  uncle,  Milton  Hay,  waving  a 
newspaper,  and  fairly  quivering  with  ex- 
citement as  he  exclaimed,  "  This  will  never 
do !  Douglas  treats  it  as  a  matter  of  in- 
difference, morally,  whether  slavery  is  voted 
down  or  voted  up.  I  tell  you  it  will  never 
do!" 

For  twenty  years  he  and  Douglas  had 
been  acquaintances  and  opponents.  He 
was  fully  aware  of  the  effective  but  not  al- 
ways scrupulous  methods  by  which  Doug- 
las had  distanced  him  in  fame  and  fortune, 
using  office  after  office  as  stepping-stones 
117 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

toward  the  goal  of  his  ambition,  the  Presi- 
dency. Personally  their  relations  were  of  a 
neighborly,  half-familiar,  wholly  super- 
ficial sort.  "  I  would  not  behave  as  well 
as  you  will  have  to  now,  for  twice  the 
money,"  Lincoln  had  told  him  when  Doug- 
las was  made  judge  of  the  Illinois  Supreme 
Court,  as  the  result  of  a  rather  questionable 
political  manoeuver. 

Lincoln  knew  him  to  be  not  only  a  wily 
and  astute  politician,  but  a  master- juggler 
with  words,  who  could,  by  mere  eloquent 
bullying,  hypnotize  his  audiences  into  be- 
lieving that  black  was,  if  not  white,  a  very 
tender  gray. 

Ever  since  Lincoln's  reentrance  into  pol- 
itics it  had  been  a  foregone  conclusion  that 
he  would  contest  Douglas's  reelection  in 
1858,  and  it  must  be  his  business  in  this 
campaign  to  point  out  the  difference  be- 
tween white  and  gray  of  any  kind. 

Douglas  had  returned  to  Illinois  with  a 
quarrel  with  President  Buchanan  on  his 
118 


A    NEW    CANDIDATE 

hands  in  addition  to  his  senatorial  fight. 
He  had  staked  his  political  future  on  his 
theory  of  Popular  Sovereignty,  while  the 
administration  had  advanced  far  beyond 
that  ground,  and  now  proposed  to  adopt  the 
Lecompton  Constitution  and  make  Kansas 
a  slave  State  whether  it  would  or  no.  This 
quarrel,  added  to  his  fame  as  a  speaker, 
drew  such  crowds  to  his  meetings  that  mere 
numbers  and  enthusiasm  seemed  likely  to 
drown  all  intelligent  discussion.  It  was  to 
offset  this  that  Lincoln  sent  Douglas  his 
challenge  to  joint  debate. 

Mr.  Norman  B.  Judd,  who  carried  his 
note  to  Douglas,  once  told  my  father  that 
Lincoln  asked  his  advice  about  sending  the 
challenge,  but  did  it  in  such  a  way  that 
Mr.  Judd  saw  his  mind  was  fully  made  up. 
Mr.  Judd  therefore  told  him  he  thought  it 
would  be  a  good  thing.  "  He  then  sat 
down  in  my  office  and  wrote  that  note,"  Mr. 
Judd  continued.  "  After  I  got  the  note  I 
had  very  hard  work  to  find  Douglas.  I 
119 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

hunted  for  him  for  three  days  before  I  got 
a  chance  to  present  it  to  him.  When  I  did 
so  finally  it  made  him  very  angry ;  so  much 
so  that  he  almost  insulted  me.  '  What  do 
you  come  to  me  with  a  thing  like  this  for?  ' 
he  asked,  and  indulged  in  other  equally  ill- 
tempered  remarks." 

But  to  refuse  would  mean  instant  loss  of 
prestige,  and  he  named  the  seven  towns  of 
Ottowa,  Freeport,  Jonesboro',  Charleston, 
Galesburg,  Quincy,  and  Alton,  and  dates 
extending  through  August,  September,  and 
October,  as  places  and  times  of  meeting. 

The  Democrats  jubilantly  predicted  an 
easy  victory.  Lincoln's  friends,  on  the 
other  hand,  were  not  altogether  sanguine, 
and  not  a  few  Republicans  of  national  rep- 
utation, like  Horace  Greeley  of  the  New 
York  Tribune,  openly  favored  Douglas's 
reelection,  on  the  ground  that  his  quarrel 
with  the  administration  was  only  a  first  step 
toward  complete  political  regeneration. 

Lincoln  was  sensitive  to  this  undercur- 
120 


rent.  It  pained  him  that  his  local  party 
friends  doubted  him,  and  it  pained  him  still 
more  that  men  of  prominence  were  willing 
to  jeopardize  a  principle  for  the  sake  of 
Douglas's  brilliant  reputation. 

Both  physically  and  intellectually  the 
campaign  proved  unusually  strenuous.  In 
addition  to  the  seven  great  debates  each 
candidate  made  engagements  to  speak  at 
meetings  of  his  own,  sometimes  at  several 
meetings  a  day.  As  Illinois  is  a  long 
State,  this  necessitated  constant  traveling. 
Douglas  had  a  special  train,  gaily  deco- 
rated, and  appropriately  besprinkled  with 
campaign  emblems  and  mottoes.  Lincoln, 
less  given  to  display,  and  less  plentifully 
supplied  with  funds,  used  any  mode  of 
conveyance  that  offered  —  farm  wagon, 
freight  train,  or  local  —  his  own  engine 
having  to  pull  up  on  a  siding  while  his 
rival's  special  flashed  by  in  a  whirl  of  cin- 
ders and  a  roar  of  campaign  noise. 

Processions  and  fireworks,  music  and 
121 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

banners,  greeted  each  in  turn,  until  it 
seemed  that  the  whole  State  had  turned  out 
to  hear  the  debate  of  these  intellectual 
giants.  In  the  northern  counties,  settled 
originally  by  people  from  New  England, 
sentijment  favored  Lincoln ;  the  southern 
end  upheld  Douglas  in  his  theory  that 
slavery  was  not  a  moral  issue,  but  purely 
a  local  question. 

In  their  very  first  debate,  in  the  north- 
ern end  of  the  State,  Douglas,  quick  to 
seize  an  advantage,  asked  his  antagonist 
a  series  of  questions,  avowedly  designed  to 
bring  forth  answers  which  would  make  him 
unpopular  "  down  in  Egypt  "  as  the  pro- 
slavery  end  of  the  State  was  called.  At 
their  second  meeting  Lincoln  answered 
these  frankly  and  fully,  and  in  return  asked 
Douglas  four  questions,  the  second  of  which 
was  whether,  in  his  opinion,  the  people  of  a 
United  States  territory  could,  in  any  law- 
ful way,  against  the  wish  of  any  citizen 
of  the  United  States,  exclude  slavery  be- 
122 


A    NEW    CANDIDATE 

* 

fore  that  territory  became  a  State.  If 
Douglas  answered  "  No,"  he  would  please 
the  South,  at  the  cost  of  denying  his 
own  theory  of  Popular  Sovereignty.  If  he 
stood  by  his  theory  and  answered  "  Yes," 
he  might  win  the  senatorship,  but  in  doing 
so  he  would  make  bitter  enemies  of  all  the 
Democrats  in  the  South. 

As  he  had  done  before,  in  sending  the 
challenge,  Lincoln  first  made  up  his  mind 
to  ask  this  question,  and  then  consulted  his 
friends.  Mr.  Judd  and  one  or  two  others 
made  a  hurried  journey  and  stormed  the 
hotel  bedroom  where  their  candidate  was 
catching  a  few  hours'  sleep,  waking  him 
at  two  in  the  morning  to  implore  him  not 
to  ask  it,  or  at  least  to  modify  its  form. 
"  If  you  ask  it  you  can  never  be  Senator," 
they  assured  him.  The  rescue  party  had 
its  journey  for  its  pains.  Lincoln,  good 
natured  but  unmoved,  sitting  in  scanty  dis- 
habille on  the  edge  of  the  bed  from  which 
he  had  just  been  routed,  unconscious  alike 
123 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 
* 

of  anything  remarkable  in  his  personal  ap- 
pearance or  of  anything  unusual  in  his 
mental  attitude,  replied: 

"  Gentlemen,  I  am  killing  larger  game. 
If  Douglas  answers,  he  can  never  be  Presi- 
dent; and  the  battle  of  1860  is  worth  a 
hundred  of  this." 

Yet,  in  spite  of  his  wonderful  political 
insight,  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  he 
foresaw  his  own  prominence  in  the  battle 
of  1860.  His  power  of  analysis  could 
cut  mercilessly  through  Douglas's  most  in- 
volved and  fantastic  arabesques  of  argu- 
ment, but  neither  his  logic  nor  his  poet's 
vision  was  far-reaching  enough  to  see  the 
place  he  was  to  hold  in  the  history  and 
the  hearts  of  his  native  land. 

"  In  that  day  I  shall  fight  in  the  ranks," 
he  wrote  his  friend  Judd;  for  Douglas 
answered  "  Yes,"  and  in  spite  of  Lincoln's 
majority  of  3821  in  the  popular  vote,  an 
antiquated  apportionment  gave  the  legis- 
124 


A    NEW    CANDIDATE 

lature,  and  consequently  the  senatorship, 
to  the  Democrats. 

Though  disappointed,  Lincoln  was  still 
serene.  "  I  am  glad  I  made  the  late  race," 
he  wrote  another  friend.  "  It  gave  me  a 
hearing  on  the  great  and  durable  question 
of  the  age,  which  I  could  have  had  in  no 
other  way;  and  though  I  now  sink  out  of 
view,  and  shall  be  forgotten,  I  believe  I 
have  made  some  marks  which  will  tell  for 
the  cause  of  civil  liberty  long  after  I  am 
gone." 

Lincoln  really  wanted  to  be  Senator. 
He  told  a  friend  after  the  Presidency  was 
practically  his,  that  he  would  rather  have 
a  full  term  in  the  Senate  than  four  years 
in  the  White  House.  Douglas  was  willing 
to  play  the  political  game  to  the  verge  of 
sharp  practice  in  order  to  become  Presi- 
dent. An  ironical  Fate  —  or  our  coun- 
try's beneficent  Providence  —  gave  each 
the  office  desired  by  the  other.  By  a 
125 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

further  irony  of  Fate  it  was  Douglas  him- 
self who  prolonged  interest  in  the  sena- 
torial contest  until  it  merged  into  the 
Presidential  campaign.  Having  gained  his 
senatorship  he  started  on  a  tour  of  the 
slave  States  to  make  his  peace  with  South- 
ern voters ;  and  in  every  speech  he  took 
pains  to  allude  to  Lincoln  as  the  champion 
of  Abolitionism,  and  to  his  views  as  the 
platform  of  the  Republican  party.  In 
this  way  Lincoln  was. kept  before  the  pub- 
lic as  an  authority.  "  You  are  like  Byron 
who  woke  up  one  morning  to  find  himself 
famous.  People  want  to  know  about  you," 
a  Chicago  editor  wrote  him. 

The  Alleghanies  still  separated  East 
from  West  in  February,  1860,  when  Lin- 
coln went  to  New  York  to  deliver  his 
Cooper  Institute  speech.  There  were  still 
people  who  thought  of  the  men  across  the 
mountains  as  incessantly  wielding  bowie- 
knives.  They  had  heard  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
extraordinary  height,  of  his  story-telling, 
126 


A    NEW    CANDIDATE 

something  of  his  early  struggles.  Part  of 
his  audience  that  night  came  expecting  to 
see  a  mountebank ;  part  from  a  keen  inter- 
est in  his  speeches  as  reported  in  the  news- 
papers. All  were  intensely  curious.  He, 
on  his  part,  was  equally  curious  to  test  the 
effect  of  his  words  on  a  representative 
Eastern  audience  such  as  filled  Cooper  In- 
stitute to  overflowing. 

His  hearers  saw  a  very  tall  man  with  a 
sad,  strongly  marked  face,  perfectly  self- 
possessed,  who  began  his  address  quietly 
and  soberly,  as  though  he  were  addressing 
a  court;  who  told  not  a  single  story,  and 
who  used  so  few  gestures  that,  as  one  of 
his  auditors  expressed  it,  the  speech  might 
almost  have  been  delivered  from  the  head 
of  a  barrel.  Yet  the  impressive  earnest- 
ness of  his  manner,  the  power  and  closeness 
of  his  reasoning,  and  the  fairness  of  all  the 
conclusions  he  drew,  held  their  absorbed 
attention.  Next  morning's  papers  showed 
that  his  speech  had  taken  New  York  by 
127 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

storm.  In  New  England,  where  he  made 
a  short  tour  before  returning  home,  he 
was  heard  with  equal  interest  by  working- 
men  and  college  professors.  The  first 
recognized  him  as  one  of  themselves;  the 
latter  marveled  at  his  finished  literary 
style.  Only  those  who  dreamed  of  bowie- 
knives  went  away  disappointed. 

Lincoln's  political  astuteness  saved  him 
from  one  pitfall  of  politicians  —  allowing 
their  friends  to  speak  of  them  too  soon 
as  Presidential  possibilities.  It  was  only 
a  few  months  before  the  actual  nomination 
that  he  sanctioned  the  use  of  his  name,  and 
he  did  it  then  more  with  an  idea  of  strength- 
ening him  in  some  future  contest  with 
Douglas,  than  with  reference  to  either 
place  on  the  National  ticket.  Before  go- 
ing East  to  deliver  his  Cooper  Institute 
speech,  however,  he  had  become  an  avowed 
candidate. 

Local  quarrels  made  it  appear  doubtful 
for  a  time  if  he  could  secure  the  delega- 
128 


A    NEW    CANDIDATE 

tion  from  his  own  State.  As  failure  in 
this  would  be  unfortunate  for  his  sena- 
torial hopes,  as  well  as  for  the  more  im- 
mediate enterprise,  his  presence  at  the 
Illinois  State  convention  was  deemed  ad- 
visable, and  he  was  in  the  hall  as  a  spec- 
tator when  John  Hanks  and  a  companion 
marched  in  bearing  the  rails  supposed  to 
have  been  made  by  him  in  pioneer  days. 

After  witnessing  the  furor  they  created, 
he  did  not  go  to  the  Chicago  convention. 
He  felt,  he  said,  like  the  boy  who  had 
"  stumped  "  his  toe,  and  was  too  big  to 
cry,  and  too  much  hurt  to  laugh  —  he 
was  too  much  of  a  candidate  to  attend, 
and  not  enough  of  one  to  stay  away. 

He  had  his  nerves  well  in  hand,  but 
when  the  National  Convention  met,  and 
newspapers  were  filled  with  hints  that  his 
knowledge  of  politics  translated  into  indi- 
cations of  the  drift  of  chances,  he  found 
himself  able  to  do  little  work.  He  seemed 
rather  discouraged,  and  remarked  as  he 
9  129 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

threw  himself  down  on  the  old  office  lounge, 
that  "  he  guessed  be  'd  better  go  back  to 
practising  law." 

It  is  said  that  he  was  playing  a  desul- 
tory game  of  ball  on  a  vacant  lot  near 
the  Journal  office  when  news  came  that  his 
name  was  before  the  convention.  Turning 
to  his  companions  with  one  of  his  queerly 
humorous  expressions,  he  disappeared 
into  the  newspaper  office,  and  soon  started 
for  home.  But  progress  was  slow.  The 
town  was  too  excited  to  allow  its  most 
illustrious  citizen  to  walk  home  unac- 
costed,  and  he  was  still  in  the  business 
section  when  a  boy  dashed  down  the  steps 
of  the  telegraph  office  and  charged  at  full 
speed  through  the  crowd,  shouting  at  the 
top  of  his  youthful  lungs,  "  Mr.  Lincoln, 
Mr.  Lincoln,  you  're  nominated !  " 

People  thickened  around  him  as  if  by 
magic,  shaking  his  hand  and  every  other 
hand  within  reach.  For  a  few  minutes  the 
130 


A    NEW    CANDIDATE 

central  figure  seemed  to  forget  his  own 
part  in  the  general  rejoicing  —  to  be  only 
one  of  the  happy  cheering  throng.  Then, 
excusing  himself  with  the  remark  that  there 
was  a  little  woman  down  on  Eighth  Street 
who  would  be  glad  to  hear  the  news,  he 
went  to  tell  her. 

Next  day  a  committee  from  the  Chicago 
convention,  headed  by  its  chairman,  Mr. 
Ashmun,  ranged  themselves  around  three 
sides  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  modest  parlor  to 
formally  notify  him  of  its  choice.  Those 
who  had  not  seen  him  before  eyed  him 
curiously  as  he  stood,  tall  and  gaunt, 
hands  folded  and  head  bent,  without  visi- 
ble embarrassment,  but  absolutely  devoid 
of  expression,  while  Mr.  Ashmun  made  his 
little  speech. 

Then,  looking  up,  the  new  candidate's 
eyes  and  smile  seemed  to  illumine  his  face 
as  though  a  lamp  had  been  suddenly  kin- 
dled within,  and  he  answered  in  a  few  well- 
131 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

chosen  words,  ending  with  a  hearty, 
"  Now  I  will  no  longer  defer  the  pleasure 
of  taking  each  of  you  by  the  hand."  Join- 
ing Mr.  Ashmun  he  advanced  upon  Gov- 
ernor Morgan  of  New  York,  the  most 
imposing  figure  in  the  group.  As  soon  as 
Mr.  Ashmun  made  the  introduction  Lin- 
coln asked  his  height.  "  Six  feet  three," 
was  the  astonished  answer,  and  the  New 
Yorker  lapsed  into  disconcerting  silence, 
wondering  what  irrelevant  question  this 
strange  Presidential  candidate  would  ask 
next.  But  Lincoln's  genial  simplicity  won 
them  all  in  spite  of  themselves,  and  as 
they  passed  out  one  member  of  the  com- 
mittee was  heard  to  remark  to  his  neighbor, 
"  We  might  have  done  a  more  brilliant 
thing,  but  we  could  hardly  have  a  done  a 
better  one." 

In    the    East   there    was    difference    of 

opinion.      "  We   heard   the   result   coldly 

and     sadly,"     Emerson     confessed;     and 

Charles   Francis  Adams  thought  that  no 

132 


A    NEW    CANDIDATE 

experiment  so  rash  had  been  tried  in  the 
whole  history  of  our  Government.  Doug- 
las, on  the  other  hand,  learning  of  the 
nomination,  remarked  with  conviction- 
"  That  means  business." 


133 


VIII 

THE   CAMPAIGN   SUMMER 

BEING  a  Presidential  candidate  made 
astonishingly  little  difference  in  Mr. 
Lincoln's  daily  habits.  More  people  rang 
the  bell  of  the  plain  but  comfortable 
house  on  Eighth  Street.  He  opened  the 
door  himself  if  no  one  else  was  there  to 
do  it.  More  people  stayed  to  dinner  or 
supper  on  invitation  of  the  host  or  the 
proud  hostess,  sitting  down  to  a  typically 
abundant  Western  table.  When  he  ap- 
peared upon  the  street  people  came  up  to 
shake  his  hand  —  but  they  had  been  doing 
that  for  years. 

To-day   it  would  be   impossible  for   a 
man  to  achieve  nomination  without  run- 
ning the  gauntlet  of  innumerable  cameras. 
134 


THE    CAMPAIGN    SUMMER 

A  gentleman  who  visited  Springfield  to 
congratulate  Mr.  Lincoln  "  and  form  his 
personal  acquaintance "  ventured  to  ask 
him  "  for  a  good  likeness."  He  replied 
that  he  had  no  satisfactory  picture  — 
"  But  then,"  he  said,  "  we  will  walk  out 
together,  and  I  will  sit  for  one."  Result: 
one  ambrotype ! 

The  headquarters  of  the  National  Com- 
mittee remained  as  usual  in  New  York. 
No  "  literary  bureau,"  or  other  election- 
eering organization  existed  at  Springfield. 
The  local  telegraph  office,  an  inconvenient 
little  apartment  on  the  second  floor  of  an 
office  building  near  the  Public  Square,  was 
not  even  enlarged.  Lincoln  wrote  no  pub- 
lic letters,  and  made  no  set  or  impromptu 
speeches,  with  the  exception  of  speaking 
a  word  of  greeting  once  or  twice  to  passing 
street  parades.  Even  the  strictly  confi- 
dential letters  in  which  he  gave  advice  on 
points  in  the  campaign,  did  not  exceed 
a  dozen  in  number. 

135 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

The  legislature  not  being  in  session,  the 
Governor's  room  in  the  State  House  was 
set  aside  for  his  use,  and  here  he  re- 
ceived his  visitors,  coming  in  usually  be- 
tween nine  and  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
bringing  with  him  the  mail  he  had  re- 
ceived at  his  own  home.  His  office  force 
consisted  of  one  quiet  young  secretary, 
who  assisted  him  with  his  correspondence 
in  the  intervals  of  greeting  visitors ;  and 
wrote  wonderingly  to  a  correspondent  of 
his  own  that  Mr.  Lincoln's  mail  averaged 
as  many  as  fifty  letters  a  day. 

Many  of  them,  being  merely  congratu- 
latory, needed  no  answer.  Letters  from 
personal  friends,  Mr.  Lincoln  acknowl- 
edged with  his  own  hand;  and  in  these 
he  showed  from  the  first  considerable  con- 
fidence of  success.  Governor  Chase  was 
the  only  one  of  his  rivals  in  the  convention 
to  write  him.  His  letter,  among  the  first 
to  arrive,  gave  Lincoln  much  pleasure. 
"  Holding  myself  the  humblest  of  all 
136 


THE    CAMPAIGN    SUMMER 

those  whose  names  were  before  the  con- 
vention," he  wrote  in  reply,  "  I  feel  espe- 
cial need  of  the  assistance  of  all ;  and  I  am 
glad  —  very  glad  —  of  the  indication  that 
you  stand  ready." 

Cassius  M.  Clay,  who  had  hoped  to  be 
nominated  for  Vice-president,  wrote  breez- 

ily: 

Well,  you  have  cleaned  us  all  out.  The 
Gods  favor  you,  and  we  must  with  good 
grace  submit.  After  your  nomination  for 
the  first  post,  my  chances  were  of  course 
ruined  for  becoming  heir  to  your  old  clothes. 
It  became  necessary  to  choose  a  Vice-presi- 
dent from  the  Northeast,  and  of  Democratic 
antecedents.  But  after  Old  Kentucky  had 
come  so  liberally  to  your  rescue,  I  think  you 
might  have  complimented  us  with  more  than 
two  votes !  Still  we  won't  quarrel  with  you 
on  that  account.  Nature  does  not  aggregate 
her  gifts;  and  as  some  of  us  are  better  look- 
ing men  than  yourself,  we  must  cheerfully 
award  you  the  post  of  honor. 

137 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Allow  me  to  congratulate  you,  and  believe 
me  truly  devoted  to  your  success,  and  com- 
mand my  poor  services  if  needed. 

One  letter  of  congratulation,  quite  apart 
from  the  rest,  came  from  an  old  comrade 
in  the  Black  Hawk  war. 

RESPECTED  SIR:  In  view  of  the  intimacy 
that  at  one  time  subsisted  between  you  and 
me,  I  deem  it  my  duty  as  well  as  privilege, 
now  that  the  intensity  of  the  excitement  of 
recent  transactions  is  a  little  passed  from 
you  and  from  me,  after  the  crowd  of  con- 
gratulations already  received  from  many 
friends,  also  to  offer  you  my  heartfelt  gratu- 
lation  on  your  very  exalted  position  in  the 
great  Republican  party.  No  doubt  but  that 
you  will  become  tired  of  the  flattery  of  cring- 
ing selfish  adulators.  But  I  think  you  will 
know  that  what  I  say  I  feel.  For  the  at- 
tachment in  the  Black  Hawk  campaign  while 
we  messed  together  with  Johnston,  Faucher, 
and  Wyatt,  when  we  ground  our  coffee  in  the 
same  cup  with  the  hatchet  handle  —  baked 

138 


THE    CAMPAIGN    SUMMER 

our  bread  on  our  ramrod  around  the  same 
fire  —  ate  our  fried  meat  off  the  same  piece 
of  elm  bark  —  slept  in  the  same  tent  every 
nigh1»  —  traveled  together  by  day  and  by 
night  in  search  of  the  savage  foe  —  and  to- 
gether scoured  the  tall  grass  on  the  battle- 
ground of  the  skirmish  near  Gratiot's  Grove 
in  search  of  the  slain  —  with  very  many  in- 
cidents too  tedious  to  name  —  and  consum- 
mated in  our  afoot  and  canoe  journey  home, 
must  render  us  incapable  of  deception. 
Since  the  time  mentioned,  our  pursuits  have 
called  us  to  operate  a  little  apart;  yours,  as 
you  formerly  hinted,  to  a  course  of  political 
and  legal  struggle;  mine  to  agriculture  and 
medicine.  The  success  that  we  have  both 
enjoyed,  I  am  happy  to  know,  is  very  en- 
couraging. I  am  also  glad  to  know,  although 
we  must  act  in  vastly  different  spheres,  that 
we  are  enlisted  for  the  promotion  of  the 
same  great  cause  —  the  cause  which,  next  to 
revealed  religion  (which  is  humility  and 
love)  is  most  dear,  the  cause  of  Liberty,  as 
set  forth  by  true  Republicanism  and  not  rank 
abolitionism. 

139 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Then  let  us  go  on  in  the  discharge  of  duty, 
trusting  for  aid  to  the  Great  Universal  Ruler. 
Yours  truly,  GEORGE  M.  HARRISON. 

Among  the  letters  were  many  requests 
for  his  opinion  on  points  of  party  doc- 
trine. For  these  he  prepared  a  polite  form, 
explaining  why  he  could  not  comply. 
There  were  also  many  letters  of  advice. 
William  Cullen  Bryant,  whom  we  are  wont 
to  consider  a  poet  rather  than  a  politician, 
wrote  with  "  the  frankness  of  an  old  cam- 
'paigner,"  to  warn  him  against  making 
speeches  or  promises  —  even  to  be  chary 
of  kind  words.  Joshua  R.  Giddings  elo- 
quently recommended  John  Quincy  Adams 
as  the  model  for  an  untried  Westerner  to 
follow.  Such  letters  Lincoln  answered 
with  modest  sincerity.  "  I  appreciate  the 
danger  against  which  you  would  guard 
me,"  he  wrote  Bryant,  "  nor  am  I  wanting 
in  the  purpose  to  avoid  it.  I  thank  you 
for  the  additional  strength  your  words  give 
me  to  maintain  that  purpose." 
140 


THE    CAMPAIGN    SUMMER 

Requests  for  details  of  his  personal  life, 
to  be  used  in  campaign  biographies,  were 
refused  as  a  rule ;  but  since  "  lives  "  were 
sure  to  be  published,  Lincoln  made  excep- 
tions and  wrote  with  his  own  hand  two 
short  biographical  sketches.  The  longer 
of  these,  covering  several  sheets  of  legal- 
cap,  was  turned  over  to  one  William  Dean 
Howells,  then  unknown  to  fame,  who  wrote 
from  it  a  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln  which 
served  its  purpose  and  was  speedily  for- 
gotten. A  cautious  well-wisher  sent  the 
candidate  confidential  word  that  the  proof- 
sheets  must  really  be  searchingly  examined. 
He  was  careful  to  certify  to  the  young 
gentleman's  exquisite  literary  taste,  but 
hinted  darkly  that  his  anti-slavery  views 
might  color  the  work.  Needless  to  say 
Mr.  Lincoln  did  not  appoint  a  committee 
of  revision ;  and  so  far  as  is  known,  Mr. 
Howells's  contribution  to  the  campaign  did 
not  lose  the  Republican  candidate  any 
votes. 

141 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

After  two  months  had  gone  by,  and 
Lincoln  had  received  no  word  from  his 
companion  on  the  ticket,  he  sent  hinl  the 
following  characteristic  little  note: 

Hon.  Hannibal  Hamlin, 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  It  appears  to  me  that 
you  and  I  ought  to  be  acquainted,  and  ac- 
cordingly I  write  this  as  a  sort  of  introduc- 
tion of  myself  to  you.  You  first  entered  the 
Senate  during  the  single  term  I  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  House  of  Representatives,  but  I 
have  no  recollection  that  we  were  introduced. 
I  shall  be  pleased  to  receive  a  line  from  you. 

The  prospect  of  Republican  success  now 
appears  very  flattering,  so  far  as  I  can  per- 
ceive. Do  you  see  anything  to  the  contrary? 
Yours  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

The  simplicity  and  friendliness  of  this 
were  duplicated  in  the  simplicity  and 
friendliness  with  which  he  met  his  visitors 
—  the  neighbors  who  trusted  him,  political 
friends  who  admired  him,  and  doubters 
come  from  afar  to  see  what  manner  of 
142 


THE    CAMPAIGN    SUMMER 

Westerner  a  freak  of  popular  fancy  had 
made  candidate  of  the  vigorous  young  Re- 
publican party.  They  passed  in  and  out 
of  his  door  all  day  long,  and  each  felt  in- 
stinctively the  kindness  and  honesty  that 
shone  from  his  deeply  furrowed  face. 
That  wonderful  expressive  face,  mirthful, 
shrewd,  melancholy,  and  suffused  with 
emotion  by  turns ;  so  homely  in  its  rugged 
uncompromising  lines,  so  sad  in  moments 
of  repose;  on  occasion  so  tenderly  beauti- 
ful in  expression.  Neighbors  who  knew  it 
of  old,  loved  it,  though  they  would  proba- 
bly have  called  it  ugly.  Newcomers  mar- 
veled at  it,  but  soon  forgot  to  question  if 
it  were  handsome  or  not. 

It  seems  odd  that  such  a  marked  face 
could  have  been  unknown  to  any  one  seek- 
ing him,  yet  there  were  those  who  met 
Mr.  Lincoln  and  failed  to  recognize  him. 
My  father's  notes  tell  of  a  stranger  who 
asked  the  way  to  the  State  House.  The 
tall  man  of  whom  he  inquired  said  he  was 
143 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

going  there  himself  and  offered  to  act  as 
guide.  Then,  on  reaching  the  Governor's 
room,  turned  upon  him  with  a  merry  smile 
and  quite  inimitable  gesture  of  apology, 
saying,  "  I  am  Lincoln." 

Artists  got  permission  to  paint  his  por- 
trait, and  set  up  their  easels  in  the  Gov- 
ernor's room,  doing  their  work  as  well  as 
they  could  for  the  constant  interruption 
of  callers,  and  the  marauding  forays  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  two  little  boys,  who  appeared 
at  intervals  and  got  inextricably  mixed 
with  the  paints,  to  the  stifled  wrath  of 
the  artist.  Mr.  Lincoln's  mild,  "  Boys, 
boys,  you  must  n't  meddle !  Now  run 
home  and  have  your  faces  washed," 
seemed  lamentably  inadequate. 

Jones  of  Cincinnati  established  a  sculp- 
tor's studio  near  by,  and  made  a 
bust  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  to  which  the  candi- 
date referred  j  okingly  as  his  "  mud-head." 
The  sculptor  Volk  also  made  studies  for 
a  statue.  On  a  certain  Sunday  morning  he 
144 


THE    CAMPAIGN    SUMMER 

went  by  appointment  to  the  house  on 
Eighth  Street  to  make  casts  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's hands.  Being  asked  to  hold  a  stick, 
or  something  of  the  kind,  he  disappeared 
into  the  woodshed,  the  sound  of  sawing  was 
heard,  and  he  reappeared,  whittling  the 
edges  of  a  piece  of  broomhandle.  Mr. 
Volk  explained  that  it  was  not  necessary 
to  trim  off  the  edges  so  carefully.  "  Oh, 
well,"  he  said,  "  I  thought  I  would  like  to 
have  it  nice." 

Presents  of  a  symbolic  nature  were 
showered  upon  the  candidate  until  the 
room  at  the  State  House  took  on  the  aspect 
of  a  museum.  Mr.  Lincoln  used  the  axes, 
wedges,  log-chains,  and  other  implements 
as  texts  for  explanations  and  anecdotes 
of  pioneer  craft;  thus  making  them  serve 
a  double  purpose  in  amusing  his  visitors 
and  keeping  the  conversation  away  from 
politics. 

For  in  all  this  exchange  of  friendly 
greeting,  and  under  all  the  campaign  en- 
10  145 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

thusiasm,  was  a  note  of  increasing  anxiety. 
The  South  was  making  ugly  threats.  It 
behooved  Lincoln  to  keep  silence  on  party 
questions,  and  even  more  on  the  problems 
of  national  politics  which  loomed  ever 
larger  and  darker  as  the  summer  ad- 
vanced. 

He  was  begged  to  issue  some  statement 
to  allay  the  growing  unrest  in  the  South 

—  to  say  something  to  reassure  the  men 
"  honestly  alarmed."    "There  are  no  such 
men,"  he  answered   stoutly.      "  It   is  the 
trick   by   which   the   South   breaks   down 
every  Northern  man.    If  I  yielded  to  their 
entreaties  I  would  go  to  Washington  with- 
out the  support  of  the  men  who  now  sup- 
port me.     I  would  be  as  powerless  as  a 
block  of  buckeye  wood.     The  honest  men 

—  you  are  talking  of  honest  men  —  will 
find  in  our  platform  everything  I  could  say 
now,  or  which  they  would  ask  me  to  say." 

So  he  went  on  talking  pleasantries  and 
pioneer    days    to    his    visitors,    watching 
146 


THE    CAMPAIGN    SUMMER 

meanwhile  the  ever-growing  menace  be- 
hind the  circle  of  their  friendly  faces. 

The  anxiety  took  on  a  personal  note.  In 
October  his  secretary  wrote :  "  Among  the 
many  things  said  to  Mr.  Lincoln  by  his 
visitors  there  is  nearly  always  an  expressed 
hope  that  he  will  not  be  so  unfortunate 
as  were  Harrison  and  Taylor,  to  be  killed 
off  by  the  cares  of  the  Presidency  —  or 
as  is  sometimes  hinted,  by  foul  means.  It 
is  astonishing  how  the  popular  sympathy 
for  Mr.  Lincoln  draws  fearful  forebodings 
from  these  two  examples,  which,  after  all, 
were  only  a  natural  coincidence.  Not  only 
do  visitors  mention  the  matter,  but  a  great 
many  letters  have  been  written  to  Mr. 
Lincoln  on  the  subject." 

Another  manifestation  of  the  same  feel- 
ing was  noted  by  the  Reverend  Albert  Hall, 
one  of  the  pastors  of  Springfield,  as  he  sat 
in  the  Governor's  room,  waiting  to  speak 
to  Mr.  Lincoln.  "  Several  weeks  ag^o,"  he 
wrote,  "  two  country  boys  came  along  the 
147 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

dark  passage  that  leads  to  his  room.  One 
of  them  looked  in  at  the  door,  and  then 
called  to  his  fellow  behind,  saying,  '  Come 
on,  he  is  here.'  The  boys  entered  and  he 
spoke  to  them.  Immediately  one  of  them 
said  that  it  was  reported  in  their  neighbor- 
hood that  he  (Mr.  Lincoln)  had  been 
poisoned,  and  their  father  had  sent  them 
to  see  if  the  report  was  true.  *  And,'  said 
the  boy  with  all  earnestness,  '  Dad  says 
you  must  look  out  and  eat  nothing  only 
what  your  old  woman  cooks  for  you  — 
and  Mother  says  so  too ! ' 

On  election  day  the  excitement  under 
which  Springfield  labored  reached  its 
height  about  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
when  the  candidate  himself  appeared  in 
the  upper  room  in  the  Court  House  where 
the  voting  took  place.  He  had  been  recog- 
nized in  the  street,  and  even  the  distribu- 
tors of  Democratic  tickets  had  swung  their 
hats  and  shouted  with  the  rest. 

As  many  as  his  townsmen  as  could,  fol- 
148 


THE    CAMPAIGN    SUMMER 

lowed  him  through  the  halls  and  up  the 
stairs,  forcing  themselves  into  the  room  as 
he  went  to  the  voting  table  and  deposited 
the  straight  Republican  ticket,  from  which 
his  own  name  had  been  erased.  A  shout 
went  up  as  he  turned  again  toward  the 
door.  Hemmed  in  as  he  was  by  friends 
and  enthusiasm,  he  could  only  take  off  his 
hat,  and  smile  as  he  worked  his  way  slowly 
out  of  the  room.  "  And  when  he  smiles 
heartily,"  the  local  newspaper  account 
added,  "  there  is  something  in  it  good  to 
see." 

That  night,  after  the  returns  began  to 
come  in,  excitement  rose  again  in  Spring- 
field. Good  news,  first  from  near-by  pre- 
cincts, then  from  farther  away,  set  the 
crowds  to  cheering.  Over  in  the  lighted 
State  House  men  began  to  shout  and  dance, 
and  in  a  room  across  the  way  their  wives 
and  daughters  dispensed  smiles  and  good 
things  to  eat. 

Lincoln  meanwhile  sat  alone  in  the  little 
149 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

telegraph  office,  reading  the  returns  as 
they  were  handed  to  him.  Little  by  little 
accumulating  majorities  reported  from  all 
directions,  convinced  him  of  Republican 
victory.  With  this  conviction  there  fell 
upon  him  an  overwhelming,  almost  crush- 
ing sense  of  his  coming  responsibilities. 
The  noise  of  rejoicing  broke  into  the 
room  in  waves  of  ever  increasing  sound; 
but  the  successful  candidate  sat  on  alone, 
with  head  bowed,  his  deep-lined  face  sad 
and  set  —  looking  into  the  future. 


150 


IX 

THE  JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON 

IN  that  hour  Lincoln  completed  one  of 
the  great  and  characteristic  acts  of 
his  life  —  the  choice  of  his  cabinet.  He 
resolved  to  make  his  four  principal  rivals, 
Seward  and  Chase  and  Cameron  and  Bates, 
his  chief  advisers.  The  audacity  and  un- 
worldliness  of  it  are  alike  staggering. 

Whether  he  already  felt  within  him  a 
power  to  govern  men,  or  whether  he  did  it 
from  loyal  obedience  to  the  principles  of 
representative  government,  knowing  that 
nowhere  else  could  he  find  men  so  truly 
representing  the  different  elements  out  of 
which  the  Republican  party  had  been  made, 
he  deliberately  chose  to  gather  them  about 
151 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

him  and  ignore  the  personal  questions  such 
an  act  must  precipitate. 

Then  followed  the  troubled  months  pre- 
ceding his  inauguration,  a  season  for  him 
of  anxiety  and  growth,  in  which  he  passed 
from  his  second  phase  of  teacher,  to  his 
third  of  ruler  and  magistrate. 

The  South  had  made  ugly  threats  be- 
fore the  election,  now  it  prepared  to  carry 
them  out.  South  Carolina  passed  its  Or- 
dinance of  Secession;  and  one  by  one  the 
other  Cotton  States  followed  her  example. 
Officers  of  the  army  and  navy  began  giving 
up  the  Government  property  in  their 
charge.  The  administration  at  Washing- 
ton seemed  bound  in  a  fatal  lethargy; 
while  Lincoln,  who  saw  need  for  instant 
action,  could  do  nothing  —  would  be  pow- 
erless until  after  the  fourth  of  March. 

He  did  not  doubt  either  the  duty  or 

the  ability  of  the  Government  to  maintain 

its  own  integrity.     "  That,"  he  said,  "  is 

nt>t  the  ugly  point  in  the  matter.     The 

152 


JOURNEY   TO   WASHINGTON 

ugly  point  is  the  necessity  of  keeping  the 
Government  together  by  force,  as  ours 
should  be  a  government  of  fraternity." 

In  December  his  secretary  brought  him 
a  rumor  that  Buchanan  had  ordered  Major 
Anderson  to  give  up  Fort  Moultrie  if  it 
should  be  attacked. 

"  If  that  is  true,  they  ought  to  hang 
him ! "  Lincoln  exclaimed,  and  went  on  to 
say  that  only  the  day  before  he  had  noti- 
fied General  Scott  to  be  prepared  to  hold 
or  re-take  the  forts  immediately  after  the 
Inauguration.  "  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  in  any  event  that  is  good  ground  to 
live  and  die  by,"  he  said. 

Before  the  end  of  the  year  he  began 
receiving  notes  offering  the  services  of 
State  militia  to  uphold  National  authority. 
But  nobody  wanted  war.  "  Compromise  " 
was  the  word  on  every  lip.  Letters  of 
advice  came  to  him,  thick  and  fast.  His 
visitors  increased  in  numbers  and  impor- 
tance. The  Chenery  House,  where  most 
153 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

of  them  stayed,  was  so  crowded  with 
strangers  that  "  dinner,"  as  the  young 
secretary  sadly  remarked,  "  is  worth 
scrambling  for." 

Lincoln  was  urged  to  make  up  his  cab- 
inet of  "  conservative  men,"  one  or  more  of 
them  from  the  South.  The  difficulty  of 
doing  this  he  showed  with  unsparing  logic 
in  a  little  unsigned  editorial  printed  in  the 
Springfield  Journal. 

"  First.  Is  it  known  that  any  such 
gentleman  of  character  would  accept  a 
place  in  the  cabinet? 

"  Second.  If  yea,  on  what  terms  does 
he  surrender  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  or  Mr.  Lin- 
coln to  him,  on  the  political  differences 
between  them;  or  do  they  enter  upon  the 
administration  in  open  opposition  to  each 
other?  " 

Affairs  of  national  importance,  trivial 

tasks,  and  this  great  menace  filled  his  days 

like  the  interwoven  details   of  some  bad 

dream.    His  cabinet  had  been  decided  upon 

154 


Jfamilj  aitb  ^uite  of  the  Draibmt 

^^J  ^^  0         it' 


HON.  A.  LraOOLN. 

MRS.  LINCOLN  AND  TWO  CHILDBEN. 


ROBT.  T.  LINCOLN, 
DR.  W.  S.  WALLACE, 


LOCKWOOD  TODD 


JOHN  G.  NICOLA Y,  ESP  r.,  Private  Secretary, 
JOHN  M.  HAY,  Esqr..  A  Distant  Secretary, 
HOX.  N.  B.  JUDD,  of  III  acre, 
HON.  DAVID  DAVIS,  ot  Illinois, 
COL.  E.  V.  SUMNER,  US.  A. 
MAJ.  D.  HUNTER,  U.  &  A. 


CAPT.  G.  W.  HAZZARD.  U.  8.  A. 
COL.  E.  E.  ELLSWORTH,  of  New  York. 
COL.  TVARD  H.  LAMON,  nf  Illinois-. 
J.  M.  BURGESS,  Esq.,  of  Wisconsin, 
GEO.  O.  LATHAM. 


W.  S.  WOOD,  Superintendent  of  Arrangements, 

BURNETT  FORBES,  Assistant  Superintendent  of  Arrangements. 


Party  accompanying  Lincoln  on  the  Journey  from  Springfield 
to  Washington 


JOURNEY   TO   WASHINGTON 

in  his  own  mind;  but  many  letters  and 
interviews,  and  the  exercise  of  much  tact 
were  necessary  in  offering  these  appoint- 
ments. His  inaugural  had  to  be  written, 
and  its  tenor  kept  secret  from  the  news- 
paper men  who  dogged  his  footsteps.  His 
private  affairs  must  be  put  in  order;  the 
details  of  his  journey  to  Washington  de- 
cided upon;  and  in  addition,  he  had  to 
find  time  and  grace  to  appear  unhurried 
and  agreeable  with  even  his  least  desirable 
callers  —  like  the  "  regular  genuine  Se- 
cessionist "  who  sat  twirling  his  hat  in  his 
hands,  half  inclined  to  hide  its  blue  cock- 
ade, until  Lincoln  took  pity  on  him,  en- 
gaged him  in  bantering  conversation,  and 
sent  him  away  with  a  copy  of  the  Lincoln- 
Douglas  Debates  under  his  arm;  while  a 
mannerless  and  humorless  Yankee  across 
the  room,  snarled,  and  evidently  longed  for 
a  fight. 

Lincoln  found  time  to  pay  a  visit  of 
farewell     to     his     stepmother     in     Coles 
155 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

County;  and  on  the  day  before  starting 
for  Washington,  appeared  at  his  old  law 
office  to  go  over  matters  of  business  with 
his  partner  Mr.  Herndon.  After  they  had 
finished  their  talk  he  threw  himself  down 
on  the  old  lounge,  and  for  a  while  neither 
spoke.  He  seemed  to  be  passing  in  review 
the  incidents  of  his  law  practice;  but  he 
was  neither  sad  nor  sentimental.  Pres- 
ently he  began  to  speak  of  amusing 
things  that  had  happened  on  the  Eighth 
Circuit.  It  was  only  as  he  was  taking  his 
leave  that  he  paused  on  the  threshold,  and 
with  a  sudden  change  of  tone,  asked  that 
the  office  sign  be  allowed  to  hang  undis- 
turbed. "  Give  our  clients  to  understand 
that  the  election  of  a  President  makes  no 
difference,"  he  said.  "  If  I  live  I  'm  com- 
ing back  sometime,  and  we  '11  go  right  on 
practising  law,  as  if  nothing  had  hap- 
pened." 

But  how  deeply  he  was  moved  by  this 
departure  from  his  old  home,  his  speech 
156 


JOURNEY   TO   WASHINGTON 

of  farewell,  made  from  the  platform  of 
the  train,  as  his  neighbors  stood  uncov- 
ered in  the  falling  snow,  amply  testified. 
There  was  in  it  a  sadness  and  a  pathos 
almost  prophetic. 

"  My  friends :  No  one  not  in  my  situ- 
ation, can  appreciate  my  feeling  of  sadness 
at  this  parting.  To  this  place,  and  the 
kindness  of  these  people,  I  owe  everything. 
Here  I  have  lived  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
and  have  passed  from  a  young  to  an  old 
man.  Here  my  children  have  been  born, 
and  one  is  buried.  I  now  leave,  not  know- 
ing when  or  whether  ever  I  may  return, 
with  a  task  before  me  greater  than  that 
which  rested  upon  Washington.  Without 
the  assistance  of  that  Divine  Being  who 
ever  attended  him,  I  cannot  succeed.  With 
that  assistance  I  cannot  fail.  Trusting  in 
Him  who  can  go  with  me,  and  remain 
with  you,  and  be  everywhere  for  good,  let 
us  confidently  hope  that  all  will  yet  be 
well.  To  His  care  commending  you,  as  I 
157 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

hope  in  your  prayers  you  will  commend 
me,  I  bid  you  an  affectionate  farewell." 

It  was  true  that  he  went  to  assume  a 
responsibility  "  greater  than  that  which 
rested  upon  Washington,"  yet  the  glamour 
of  that  journey  with  its  cheering  thousands, 
when  the  train  seemed  to  be  rushing 
through  one  continuous  crowd,  and  every 
throat  was  calling  his  name,  might  have 
justified  even  a  modest  man  in  the  belief 
that  he  was  to  have  an  easy  task.  Lin- 
coln accepted  the  acclaim  in  his  heart,  as 
he  acknowledged  it  in  his  speeches,  as  a 
welcome  from  the  people  to  their  chief 
magistrate. 

His  personal  relation  to  the  throngs  was 
one  of  joyous  comradeship.  A  crowd  of 
clamorous  enthusiastic  American  citizens 
drew  him  irresistibly.  At  every  halt  he 
was  met  by  eager  demands  for  a  speech, 
yet  it  was  manifestly  impossible  for  him  to 
speak  everywhere.  At  first  he  gave  himself 
up  unreservedly  to  the  various  committees 
158 


JOURNEY   TO   WASHINGTON 

which  tumbled  into  his  car  at  every  city 
and  State  line,  and  tried  to  drag  him  forth 
even  before  the  train  had  come  to  a  halt. 
But  experience  showed  that  this  was  fool- 
hardy. In  the  mad  push  and  crush  and 
confusion  a  false  start  not  only  hope- 
lessly dislocated  the  official  program,  but 
endangered  life  and  limb.  Major  Hunter 
of  his  suite  received  serious  injuries  from 
mere  pressure  of  the  crowd.  Lincoln 
learned  to  sit  quietly  in  his  car  till  told 
that  preparations  had  been  deliberately 
completed.  But  it  was  easy  to  see  that 
this  cost  him  both  effort  and  pain.  His 
sympathy  with  the  people  made  him  shrink 
from  any  protest  against  these  eager  first 
greetings;  and  though  his  judgment  bade 
him  refuse  the  popular  calls  for  his  pres- 
ence outside,  his  heart  and  feelings  were 
with  the  shouting  multitude. 

At    Indianapolis,    the    first    stopping- 
place,  he  struck  the  key-note  of  his  duty 
and  theirs  in   the   coming   crisis.      "  The 
159 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

maintenance  of  this  government,"  he  de- 
clared, "  is  your  business,  and  not  mine. 
I  wish  you  to  remember,  now  and  forever, 
that  if  the  Union  of  these  States  and  the 
liberties  of  this  people  shall  be  lost,  it  is 
but  little  to  any  one  man  of  fifty-two  years 
of  age,  but  a  great  deal  to  the  thirty  mil- 
lions of  people  who  inhabit  these  United 
States  and  to  their  posterity  in  all  coming 
time.  It  is  your  business  to  rise  up  and 
preserve  the  Union  and  liberty  for  your- 
selves, and  not  for  me." 

This  was  not  the  usual  complimen- 
tary oratory.  It  was  a  blast  of  cool  logic, 
and  had  in  it  a  ring  of  authority.  Already 
he  was  the  ruler.  In  Douglas's  bullying 
tones  these  words  might  have  sounded  like 
a  threat.  But  spoken  with  Lincoln's  deep 
earnestness,  the  reasonableness  of  his  posi- 
tion was  manifest,  and  his  auditors  felt 
sure  he  would  aid  them  to  the  utmost  in 
their  efforts  to  preserve  the  Union  for 
themselves  and  their  children. 
160 


JOURNEY   TO   WASHINGTON 

Whenever  time  would  permit,  public  ev- 
ening receptions  were  arranged;  but  these 
functions,  added  to  the  day's  fatigue  of 
travel  and  official  ceremony,  were  a  serious 
tax  upon  his  strength.  His  friends  urged 
him  to  stand  where  he  could  bow  to  the 
passers-by,  instead  of  shaking  hands.  The 
experiment  was  tried,  but  he  speedily  re- 
belled. It  changed  live  personal  contact 
into  meaningless  show.  He  seemed  to  be 
on  exhibition  like  some  wild  animal,  and 
felt  separated  by  an  enormous  chasm  from 
the  people  with  whom  it  was  his  duty,  now, 
more  than  ever  before,  to  come  into  close 
relation.  This  was  worse  than  any  amount 
of  fatigue,  and  he  returned  to  the  old 
way,  where  a  cordial  grasp  of  the  hand, 
and  a  fitting  word  established  instantane- 
ous sympathy. 

The  experiences  of  the  first  day  devel- 
oped both  the  enthusiasm  and  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  journey.  A  letter  written 
that  night  told  of  the  crowds.  "The 
11  161 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

house  is  literally  jammed  full  of  people. 
Three  or  four  ladies  and  as  many  gentle- 
men have  even  invaded  the  room  assigned 
to  Mr.  Lincoln;  while  outside  the  door  I 
hear  the  crowd  grumbling  and  shouting  in 
almost  frantic  endeavor  to  get  to  another 
parlor  at  the  door  of  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
stands  shaking  hands  with  the  multitude. 
It  is  a  severe  ordeal  for  us,  increased  ten- 
fold for  him." 

But  the  letter  said  nothing  about  Mr. 
Lincoln's  greatest  ordeal  that  day,  which 
was  nothing  less  than  the  loss  of  his  inau- 
gural address.  It  had  been  written  and 
printed  with  the  utmost  secrecy  before 
leaving  Springfield;  but  with  curious  opti- 
mism Mr.  Lincoln  placed  it  for  the  jour- 
ney in  a  little  old-fashioned  black  oil-cloth 
carpet-bag,  which  he  gave  in  charge  of  his 
eldest  son,  Robert,  without  telling  him 
what  the  bag  contained. 

To  Robert,  full  of  the  exuberant  care- 
162 


JOURNEY   TO   WASHINGTON 

lessness  of  eighteen,  the  trip  seemed  much 
more  a  triumphal  progress  than  to  his 
father.  In  the  recent  campaign  he  had 
come  in  for  a  certain  amount  of  notice  as 
the  "  Prince  of  Rails,"  a  pendant  to  his 
father's  sobriquet,  "  The  Illinois  Rail- 
Splitter  " ;  and  at  every  stopping-place 
a  group  of  "  the  boys  "  stood  ready  to 
seize  upon  him  and  do  the  honors  after 
their  own  capricious  fashion. 

At  Indianapolis,  partly  from  inexperi- 
ence on  the  part  of  the  travelers,  partly 
from  insufficient  police  control,  only  a  por- 
tion of  the  suite  reached  the  carriages  in- 
tended for  them.  The  rest,  including 
Robert,  had  to  force  their  way,  luggage  in 
hand,  as  best  they  could,  to  their  hotel. 
Even  so  they  reached  it  long  before  the 
others,  who  were  being  conscientiously 
driven  through  the  streets  in  procession. 
No  sooner  had  Mr.  Lincoln  arrived  and 
worked  his  way  through  the  packed  corri- 
163 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

dors  to  his  room,  than  he  was  called  out 
again,  to  address  the  crowd  from  a  bal- 
cony. 

When  at  last  he  had  time  to  think  of 
the  little  black  bag,  Robert  was  not  to 
be  found.  Feverish  inquiries  developed 
that  he  was  off  with  "  the  boys,"  and  still 
more  time  elapsed  before  he  could  be  lo- 
cated and  brought  back.  To  his  father's 
impetuous  questions  he  replied  with  bored 
and  injured  virtue  that  having  arrived  in 
the  confusion,  with  no  room  to  go  to,  he 
had  handed  the  bag  to  the  hotel  clerk  — 
after  the  usual  manner  of  travelers. 

"  And  what  did  the  clerk  do  with  it?  " 
his  father  asked. 

"  It  is  on  the  floor  behind  the  counter," 
was  the  complacent  answer. 

Visions  of  his  inaugural  in  all  the  morn- 
ing papers  floated  before  the  President- 
elect, as  without  a  word  he  threw  open 
his  door  and  began  making  his  way 
through  the  crowded  halls  to  the  office. 
164 


JOURNEY  TO  WASHINGTON 

One  single  stride  of  his  long  legs  swung 
him  across  the  clerk's  desk,  and  he  fell 
upon  the  small  mountain  of  luggage  accu- 
mulated behind  it.  Taking  a  little  key 
from  his  pocket,  he  began  delving  for 
black  bags,  and  opening  such  as  the  key 
would  unlock,  while  bystanders  craned 
their  necks,  and  the  horrified  clerk  stood 
open-mouthed.  The  first  half  dozen 
yielded  an  assortment  of  undesired  and 
miscellaneous  articles;  then  he  came  upon 
his  own,  inviolate  —  and  Robert  had  no 
more  porter's  duty  during  the  rest  of  the 
trip. 

It  was  not  the  least  of  the  strange  con- 
trasts in  Mr.  Lincoln's  career,  that  after 
the  enthusiasm  and  acclamations  of  this 
journey,  he  was  forced  to  enter  Washing- 
ton secretly,  under  cover  of  night.  News 
of  the  plot  against  his  life,  coming  from 
two  sources,  equally  trustworthy,  was  too 
serious  to  disregard;  and  though  he  was 
averse  to  such  a  course,  believing  that 
165 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

"  assassination  of  public  officers  is  not  an 
American  crime,"  he  was  too  impartial  and 
just  to  deny  that  this  was  no  longer  a 
question  of  his  personal  desires,  or  even 
of  his  private  life,  but  of  the  orderly 
transmission  of  authority. 

When  it  became  known  that  the  Presi- 
dent-elect had  entered  the  Nation's  capital 
in  such  manner,  great  was  the  wonder 
and  the  criticism.  The  town  was  semi- 
Southern,  and  not  at  all  inclined  to  greet 
the  newcomer  with  open  arms.  This  act 
gave  another  peg  upon  which  to  hang 
criticism.  Stanton,  with  a  world  of  ma- 
lignity in  his  tone,  spoke  of  the  way  Lin- 
coln "  crept  into  Washington."  Others 
called  it  "  that  smuggling  business."  No 
one  seemed  to  reflect  that  it  required  more 
courage  for  a  brave  man  to  conquer  his 
natural  aversion  to  such  a  course  than  to 
follow  his  impulse  and  disregard  the  warn- 
ing. 

The  Presidential  party  was  quartered 
166 


JOURNEY   TO   WASHINGTON 

at  Willard's.  "  The  original  plan  was  to 
go  to  a  private  house  which  had  been 
rented  for  the  occasion,"  we  learn  by  a 
letter  from  one  of  the  suite.  "  This  plan 
having  been  changed,  and  no  rooms  having 
been  reserved,  all  the  party  except  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Lincoln  have  but  sorry  accom- 
modations." 

Here  during  the  week  before  inaugura- 
tion Lincoln  received  visits  of  ceremony 
from  President  Buchanan  and  the  outgoing 
cabinet,  from  his  rivals  in  the  recent  cam- 
paign, Douglas  and  Breckinridge,  from 
the  fruitless  Peace  Congress  then  in  ses- 
sion, which  came  in  a  body,  headed  by  its 
chairman,  Ex-president  Tyler,  and  from 
many  lesser  social  and  political  lights. 
Here  also,  when  such  formalities  were  not 
in  progress,  the  crowded  hotel  parlors, 
so  thronged  "  as  to  make  it  seem  like  hav- 
ing a  party  every  night,"  turned  a  battery 
of  not  altogether  friendly  eyes  upon  the 
President-elect  and  his  suite.  His  sim- 
167 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

plicity  of  manner  and  his  apt  replies  al- 
ternately amused  and  impressed  the  on- 
lookers. 

Douglas  especially,  critical  and  a  bit 
malicious,  yet  full  of  State  pride,  and 
of  admiration  for  Lincoln  personally, 
watched  him.  "  He  has  not  yet  got  out 
of  Springfield,"  he  said.  "  He  has  his 
wife  with  him.  He  does  not  know  that  he 
is  President-elect  of  the  United  States,  sir. 
He  does  not  see  that  the  shadow  he  casts 
is  any  bigger  now  than  it  was  last  year  — 
but  he  will  soon  find  it  out  when  he  is 
once  inside  the  White  House." 

"  There  is  not  the  slightest  apprehen- 
sion about  trouble  at  the  Inauguration  — 
or  any  other  time.  That  cloud  has  blown 
over,"  one  of  the  suite  wrote  home.  That 
was  the  universal  hope,  yet  General  Scott 
saw  to  it  that  all  possible  precautions  were 
taken.  Military  preceded  and  followed 
and  trotted  in  double  files  on  each  side  of 
the  carriage  in  which  the  two  Presidents 
168 


TO  THE  COMMITTEE  OF  ARRANGEMENTS 

For  the  RECEPTION  OF  THE  PRESIDENT  ELECT  : 

GENTLEMEN.— 

Being  charged  with  the  responsibility  of  the  safe  conduct  of  the  President  elect, 

and  his  suite  to  their  destination,  I  deem  it  my  duty,  for  special  reasons  which  you  will  readily  com- 
prehend, to  offer  the  following  suggestions  : 

Firit:  The  President  elect  will  under  no  circumstances  attempt  to  pass  t'irough  any  crowd  until  such 
arrangements  are  made  as  will  meet  the  approval  of  Col.  Ellsworth,  who  is  charged  with  the  responsi- 
bility of  all  matters  of  this  character,  and  .to  facilitate  this,  you  will  confer  ;i  favor  by  placing  Col.  Ells- 
worth in  communication  with  the  chief  tf  yourescort,  immediately  upon  the  arrival  of  the  train. 


THE  PRESIDENT  ELECT, 

COL.  LAMON,  or  other  Members  of  Ms  Suite, 

One  or  two  members  of  the  Escort  or  Committee. 


COL.  E  V.  SUMNER,  TJ  S.  A., 
MAJ.  D.  HUNTER,  TJ.  S.  A., 
HON.  N.  B.  JUDD,  of  Illinois, 
HON  DAVID  DAVIS,  of  Illinois, 


COL.  E.  E.  ELLStt'ORTH, 

CXPTf.  HAZZAKD, 

JOHN  G.  NICOLAT.  Esq.    Private  Secretary, 

Member  of  Hie  Escort. 

FOTJTtTH 


ROUT.  T.  LINCOLN, 

JOHN  M.  HAY,  Assistant  Secretary, 

Two  Members  of  the  Escort, 


The  other  members  of  the  suite  may  be  arranged  at  your  pleasure  by  your  committee  on  the  can. 
Two  carnages  will  be  required  to  convey  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  family  and  her  escort  from  the  care. 


Mr.  Lincoln's  Secretaries  will  require  rooms  contiguous,  to  the  President  elect. 

A  private  dining  room  with  table  for  six  or  eight  persons: 

Mr.  Wood  will  also  require  a  room  near  the  President  elect,  for  the  accommodation  of  himself  and 
Secretary. 

The  other  members  of  the  suite  will  be  placed  as  near  as  con  venient. 

For  the  convenience  of  the  committee,  a  list  of  the  names  of  the  suite  arranged  in  their  proper  order 
is  appended. 

Trusting,  gentlemen,  that  inasmuch  as  we  have  a  common  purpose  in  tHs  matter,  the  safety,  conn 
fort  and  convenience  of  the  President  elect,  these  suggestions  will  be  received  in  the  spirit  in  which 
they  are  offered,  I  have  the  honor  to  be  your  Obedient  Servant, 

W  S.  WOOD,  Ayjeriatendort. 


Handbill  used  on  Lincoln's  Journey  to  Washington 


JOURNEY   TO   WASHINGTON 

rode  to  the  Capitol  on  the  morning  of  In- 
auguration. Squads  of  riflemen  were 
posted  on  the  roofs  of  commanding  houses 
along  Pennsylvania  Avenue.  Cavalry 
guarded  the  side-street  crossings  along  the 
route  of  the  procession.  There  were  rifle- 
men in  the  windows  of  the  Capitol ;  and  on 
the  brow  of  Capitol  Hill,  in  a  position  to 
command  the  approach,  and  also  the  broad 
plaza  where  the  out-door  ceremonies  took 
place,  a  battery  of  flying  artillery  stood 
ready  either  to  thunder  forth  a  salute,  or 
to  do  more  deadly  work. 

With  the  mailed  hand  thus  very  thinly 
disguised  in  the  glove  of  ceremony,  Lin- 
coln was  made  President.  Fortunately 
there  was  not  the  slightest  disturbance. 
"  A  fine  day  and  a  fine  display.  A  grati- 
fying and  glorious  inauguration,"  was  the 
summing  up  sent  back  to  Illinois. 

The  focus  of  all  eyes  was  a  group  of 
four  men,  representing  the  political  past 
and  future  of  the  country.  One  of  them 
169 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

was  Douglas,  who  had  brought  about  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise.  An- 
other was  Chief  Justice  Taney,  who  had 
announced  the  Dred  Scott  decision.  A 
third  was  Buchanan,  whose  use  and  misuse 
of  official  power  had  helped  on  the  mischief 
born  of  these  two  acts.  The  fourth  was 
Lincoln,  who  must  now  bring  the  country 
through  the  crisis  they  had  done  so  much 
to  precipitate. 

Very  strong  and  vigorous  he  looked,  in 
contrast  with  the  white-haired,  withered 
Buchanan.  Very  tall  he  loomed  over  the 
short  and  stocky  Douglas,  who  courteously 
held  his  hat  when  he  rose  to  deliver  his 
inaugural  address.  Very  clear  and  far- 
reaching  his  voice  sounded  over  the  listen- 
ing crowd  as  he  spoke  words  which  could 
not  be  misunderstood. 

No  President  ever  entered  upon  his  du- 
ties with  so  impartial  yet  so  firm  a  declara- 
tion of  official  intention.  His  inaugural 
declared  the  Union  perpetual,  the  Con- 
170 


JOURNEY   TO   WASHINGTON 

stitution  unbroken,  ordinances  of  secession 
void.  He  would  maintain  the  Government 
and  execute  the  laws,  but  there  would  be 
no  violence  or  bloodshed  unless  forced  upon 
the  National  authority.  "  In  your  hands, 
my  dissatisfied  fellow  countrymen,  and 
not  in  mine,  is  the  momentous  issue  of  civil 
war."  Then,  as  if  this  statement  of  fair- 
ness and  justice  were  too  harsh,  he  con- 
tinued :  "  I  am  loath  to  close.  We  are 
not  enemies  but  friends.  We  must  not  be 
enemies,"  and  so  on  to  the  end  of  his 
appeal  for  a  more  perfect  understanding. 

A  cheer  greeted  the  conclusion.  Chief 
Justice  Taney  arose,  and  again  Mr.  Lin- 
coln looked  very  tall  and  vigorous,  stand- 
ing in  front  of  him,  as  he  laid  his  hand 
upon  the  open  Bible  and  repeated,  dis- 
tinctly and  deliberately,  the  oath  of  office. 

The  battery   on  the  brow  of   the   hill 

boomed    its    salute.      Again    the    people 

cheered ;  and  entering  their  carriage,  the 

withered     old     man,     and     the     vigorous 

171 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Westerner  rode  back  along  Pennsylvania 
Avenue  to  the  White  House,  where 
Buchanan  took  cordial  leave  of  the  new 
President,  wishing  him  success  and  happi- 
ness in  his  administration. 
Success,  and  happiness ! 


172 


X 

EVERY-DAY    UFE    AT    THE    WHITE    HOUSE 

THE  menace  of  war,  which  had  been 
drawing  hourly  nearer  since  the  elec- 
tion, crossed  the  threshold  by  his  side. 
Speaking  to  an  old  friend,  months  later, 
Lincoln  said :  "  Browning,  of  all  the  trials 
I  have  had  since  I  came  here,  none  begin 
to  compare  with  those  I  had  between  the 
inauguration  and  the  fall  of  Fort  Sumter. 
They  were  so  great  that  could  I  have  an- 
ticipated them,  I  would  not  have  believed 
it  possible  to  survive  them.  The  first 
thing  that  was  handed  me  after  I  entered 
this  room  when  I  came  from  the  inaugura- 
tion, was  the  letter  from  Major  Anderson, 
saying  that  their  provisions  would  be  ex- 
173 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

hausted  before  an  expedition  could  be  sent 
to  their  relief." 

Before  the  administration  was  an  hour 
old  the  issue  was  upon  him,  yet  the  North 
would  talk  only  of  compromise.  Horace 
Greeley  had  printed  an  editorial  declaring 
that  the  Union  could  not  be  pinned  to- 
gether with  bayonets.  Mercantile  inter- 
ests, fearing  to  lose  Southern  trade,  clam- 
ored loudly  for  concession.  Buchanan  had 
apologized  to  Ex-president  Tyler  for  al- 
lowing a  few  soldiers  to  carry  the  flag 
through  the  streets  of  the  capital  on  Wash- 
ington's birthday.  Public  opinion  was 
awry.  To  use  Lincoln's  own  forceful 
words,  "  sinners  were  calling  the  righteous 
to  repentance."  In  Washington  men  pro- 
tested their  loyalty  to  the  new  President  in 
the  morning,  and  at  night  started  south  to 
join  the  confederacy.  Congress  had  ad- 
journed without  providing  means  to  meet 
the  rebellion.  It  fell  upon  Lincoln,  not 
only  to  make  momentous  decisions,  but  to 
174 


LIFE    AT    WHITE    HOUSE 

assume  responsibilities  rightly  belonging 
to  the  legislative  branch  of  the  Govern- 
ment. 

For,  though  the  fall  of  Fort  Sumter 
cleared  the  air,  and  drew  the  line  sharply 
between  patriotism  and  treason,  it  precipi- 
tated a  flood  of  new  questions  —  how  to 
provide  troops;  how  to  get  money  to  pay 
troops;  how  to  choose  efficient  generals  to 
lead  troops;  and  how  to  answer  the  ques- 
tions foreign  governments  were  sure  to  ask. 

Once  started,  from  small  beginnings  of 
riot  and  panic,  and  an  early  harvest  of 
death  which  seemed  appalling,  yet  would 
have  passed  unnoticed  in  the  slaughter  of 
later  campaigns,  the  avalanche  of  war 
swept  on  through  four  interminable  years. 
After  the  expectation  of  speedy  victory 
died  away,  it  was  Lincoln's  lot  to  watch 
with  sickening  anxiety  the  procession  of 
unsuccessful  campaigns,  and  to  learn  by 
sad  experience  the  deficiencies  of  his  gen- 
erals. 

175 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

The  slow  grinding  torture  of  those 
days  —  the  thing  which  wore  on  him,  body 
and  soul,  and  turned  him  from  a  vigorous 
man  to  an  old  one,  was  not  the  physical 
labor  of  the  Presidency,  immense  as  that 
was  —  nor  his  realization  of  the  horror 
and  waste  of  war,  deep  as  that  was.  It 
was  seeing  the  need  with  such  pitilessly 
clear  vision,  grasping  the  vast  problem 
with  the  logic  which  made  him  "  the  ablest 
strategist  of  the  war,"  and  yet  being  un- 
able to  infuse  his  own  spirit  and  vision 
into  the  men  through  whom  the  fight  must 
be  made.  Even  his  subordinates  felt  this. 
His  secretary  longed  "  to  get  into  the  most 
active  and  hottest  part  of  the  fight,  wher- 
ever that  may  be."  "  This  being  where  I 
can  overlook  the  whole  war  and  never  be 
in  it  —  always  threatened  with  danger  and 
never  meeting  it  —  constantly  worked  to 
death  and  yet  accomplishing  nothing, 
grows  exceedingly  irksome.  It  is  a  feel- 
176 


Autograph  Text  of  Address  to  Foreign  Envoys 


LIFE    AT    WHITE    HOUSE 

ing  of  duty  and  not  of  inclination  which 
keeps  me  here." 

If  these  were  the  feelings  of  the  young 
man  who  knew  he  could  throw  himself  into 
the  thick  of  the  fight  whenever  he  chose  to 
leave  the  post  to  which  he  had  been  as- 
signed, how  much  more  must  have  been  the 
suffering  of  his  chief,  on  whom  the  whole 
crushing  responsibility  lay,  and  whom  no 
earthly  power  could  release.  No  wonder 
he  said  to  General  Schenck :  "  If  to  be 
the  head  of  Hell  is  as  hard  as  what  I  have 
to  undergo  here,  I  could  find  it  in  my  heart 
to  pity  Satan  himself." 

A  memorandum  in  the  handwriting  of 
my  father,  found  in  a  sealed  envelope  en- 
dorsed, "  A  private  paper,  Conversation 
with  the  President,  October  2,  1861," 
though  the  merest  skeleton  of  their  talk, 
shows  how  uncompromisingly  he  faced  con- 
ditions. 


177 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 


POLITICAL. 

Fremont  ready  to  rebel. 

Chase  despairing. 

Cameron  utterly  ignorant  and  regardless 
of  the  course  of  things,  and  the  probable 
result.  Selfish  and  openly  discourteous 
to  the  President.  Obnoxious  to  the 
country.  Incapable  either  of  organiz- 
ing details  or  conceiving  and  executing 
general  plans. 


FINANCIAL. 


Immense 
claims  left 
for  Con- 
gress to 


Credit  gone  at  St.  Louis. 
'    Cincinnati. 
"    Springfield. 

audit. 

Over-draft    to-day,    Oct.    2,    1861,    $12,- 

000,000. 
Chase  says  new  loan  will  be  exhausted  in 

11  days. 

MILITARY. 

Kentucky  successfully  invaded. 
Missouri  virtually  seized. 
178 


LIFE    AT    WHITE    HOUSE 

October  here,  and  instead  of  having  a  force 
ready  to  descend  the  Mississippi,  the 
probability  is  that  the  Army  of  the  West 
will  be  compelled  to  defend  St.  Louis. 

Testimony  of  Chase 
Bates 
the    Blairs 
Meigs 
Gower 
Gurley 
Browning 

Thomas,  that  everything  in 
the  West,  military  and  financial,  is  in 
hopeless  confusion. 

And  in  view  of  odds  like  these  it  was  his 
duty  to  keep  up  the  spirits  of  the  country ! 
To  foster  the  morale  of  the  people,  without 
which  victories  in  the  field  would  have  been 
as  impossible  as  for  the  soldiers  to  breathe 
without  oxygen.  The  strength  and  natu- 
ral buoyancy  of  the  man  who  could  look 
such  situations  in  the  face,  and  smile,  and 
tell  stories,  is  difficult  to  comprehend. 
179 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Once,  months  after  it  happened,  the 
President  told  of  being  v/akened  at  night 
at  the  Soldiers'  Home  by  a  general  who 
came  in  a  panic  to  urge  the  immediate 
flight  of  McClellan's  army  from  Harri- 
son's Landing,  the  soldiers  to  be  hurried 
away  on  transports,  and  their  horses  killed, 
because  it  was  evident  they  could  not  be 
saved.  "  Thus  often,"  said  the  President, 
"  I,  who  am  not  a  specially  brave  man, 
have  had  to  restore  the  sinking  courage 
of  these  professional  fighters  in  critical 
times." 

But  he  was  only  human.  His  early  fits 
of  gloom,  conquered  and  fought  down, 
were  occasionally  echoed  in  these  moods, 
when  he  seemed  constrained  to  think  aloud, 
before  a  listener  he  could  trust  —  not  for 
the  benefit  of  the  other's  advice,  but  to  get 
his  thought  into  words.  Possibly  also  he 
craved  the  listener's  silent  sympathy. 
Carl  Schurz  wrote  of  such  an  interview, 
and  Leonard  Swett  told  of  being  sent  for 
180 


LIFE    AT    WHITE    HOUSE 

by  Lincoln,  who  read  letters  from  Ameri- 
cans and  foreigners  about  emancipation, 
and  then,  laying  the  letters  aside,  dis- 
cussed the  question  himself  from  many 
points  of  view,  without  asking  Mr.  Swett's 
advice,  or  even  seeking  to  impress  his  own 
ideas  upon  him.  Mr.  Swett  felt  himself 
more  an  observer  of  the  President's  men- 
tal processes  than  a  hearer  of  his  voice. 
Finally  he  wished  his  visitor  a  safe  jour- 
ney home,  and  the  audience  was  over. 
Evidently  this  earlier  talk  with  his  secre- 
tary was  the  outcome  of  another  such  im- 
perative need.  That  it  was  unusual,  and 
impressive,  is  plain  from  the  manner  in 
which  the  note  was  preserved. 

In  spite  of  the  war,  daily  life  went  on, 
as  daily  life  must,  in  a  round  of  incidents 
trivial  in  themselves.  The  tragic  back- 
ground was  made  endurable  by  a  great 
hope,  and  against  it  details  of  common- 
place living  etched  a  curious,  inconsequent, 
never-ending  pattern. 
181 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Lincoln  was  servant  of  the  people 
equally  by  heart's  impulse  and  in  fulfil- 
ment of  his  oath.  Every  hour  was  dedi- 
cated to  their  service.  His  day  began 
early,  and  ended  only  when  physical  weari- 
ness drove  him  to  his  bed.  Frequently  at 
night  he  could  not  sleep,  and  rose  to  wan- 
der from  room  to  room. 

At  first  all  his  time  was  taken  up  with 
office  seekers.  "  The  grounds,  halls,  stair- 
ways, closets,  are  filled  with  applicants, 
who  render  ingress  and  egress  difficult," 
Secretary  Seward  wrote.  Mr.  Lincoln  be- 
gan by  trying  to  receive  these  importu- 
nates,  and  attend  to  official  business,  twelve 
full  hours  a  day.  Later  his  reception 
hours  were  limited,  in  theory,  from  ten 
o'clock  to  one;  but  it  was  in  theory  only. 

"  I  am  looking  forward  with  a  good  deal 
of  eagerness  to  when  I  shall  have  time  to 
at  least  read  and  write  my  letters  in  peace 
without  being  haunted  continually  by 
some  one  who  *  wants  to  see  the  President 
182 


LIFE    AT    WHITE    HOUSE 

for  only  five  minutes.9  At  present  this 
request  meets  me  from  almost  every  man, 
woman  and  child  I  see,  whether  by  day  or 
by  night,  in  the  house,  or  on  the  street," 
my  father  wrote  when  they  had  been  in 
Washington  three  weeks. 

That  day  of  leisure  never  came.  Be- 
fore the  office-seekers  had  been  disposed  of, 
war  filled  the  house  with  a  totally  different 
class  of  visitors  —  men  who  wanted  com- 
missions, others  who  wished  to  furnish 
stores  to  the  army,  inventors  with  im- 
proved engines  of  destruction,  and  a  never- 
ending  stream  of  officers  in  search  of  pro- 
motion. 

Although,  with  the  voluntary  resigna- 
tions of  officials  who  went  south  to  join  the 
rebellion,  and  the  countless  military  ap- 
pointments made  necessary  by  the  new 
armies,  no  President  has  had  such  an  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  places  at  his  dis- 
posal, they  were  not  nearly  enough  for  the 
hungry  hordes.  "  Gentlemen,"  he  said  to 
183 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

a  group  who  urged  the  benefit  of  the  cli- 
mate as  additional  reason  for  appointing 
their  candidate  Commissioner  to  the  Sand- 
wich Islands,  "  I  am  sorry  to  say  that 
there  are  eight  other  applicants  for  the 
place,  all  sicker  than  your  man." 

That  was  long  before  the  days  of  Civil 
Service  reform,  but  Lincoln's  ideas  of  fair- 
ness gave  a  full  equivalent.  The  patient 
thoroughness  he  lavished  on  his  appoint- 
ments has  inspired  many  reminiscences. 

"  What  is  the  matter  ?  "  a  friend  asked 
in  alarm,  coming  upon  him  sad  and  de- 
pressed. "  Have  you  bad  news  from  the 
army  ?  " 

"  No,  it  is  n't  the  army,"  he  replied  with 
one  of  his  weary,  humorous  smiles.  "  It  is 
the  post-office  at  Brownsville,  Missouri." 

He  had  steadily  refused  to  make  any 
promises  before  his  election.  "  I  will  go 
to  Washington,  if  at  all,  an  unpledged 
man,"  he  declared.  "  Justice  to  all  "  was 
the  motto  he  announced  to  Mr.  Seward 
184 


LIFE    AT    WHITE    HOUSE 

when  he  tendered  him  the  office  of  Secre- 
tary of  State,  and  he  steadfastly  and  con- 
sistently tried  to  enforce  it,  even  down  to 
the  post-office  at  Brownsville,  Missouri. 

War's  toll  brought  an  increasing  num- 
ber of  applications  for  office  on  the  part 
of  disabled  soldiers  and  also  of  soldiers' 
widows.  "  My  conclusion  is,"  he  wrote 
the  Postmaster  General,  "  that  other 
things  being  equal,  they  have  the  better 
right." 

Justice  to  all  included  the  Government 
as  well  as  individuals,  and  prompted  letters 
like  the  following: 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  I  understand  a  bill  is  be- 
fore Congress  by  your  instigation,  for  taking 
your  office  from  the  control  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  the  Interior,  and  considerably  en- 
larging the  powers  and  patronage  of  your 
office.  The  proposed  change  may  be  right 
for  aught  I  know,  and  it  certainly  is  right  for 
Congress  to  do  as  it  thinks  proper  in  the 
case.  What  I  wish  to  say  is,  that  if  the 
185 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

change  is  made,  I  do  not  think  I  can  allow 
you  to  retain  the  office;  because  that  would 
be  encouraging  officers  to  be  constantly  in- 
triguing, to  the  detriment  of  the  public 
interest,  in  order  to  profit  themselves. 

In  the  rare  cases  where  justice  to  all 
could  be  combined  with  special  favors,  he 
took  particular  pleasure.  Having  a  spe- 
cially warm  spot  in  his  heart  for  artists 
and  men  of  letters,  he  asked  the  Secretary 
of  State  to  "  watch  out  "  for  "  some  of 
those  moderate-sized  consulates  which  fa- 
cilitate artists  a  little  in  their  profession," 
in  order  that  he  might  gratify  the  sculptor 
who  made  his  "  mud-head,"  ,and  certain 
other  talented  youths,  William  Dean  How- 
ells  among  them.  It  is  to  be  observed, 
however,  that  he  did  not  direct  the  Secre- 
tary of  State  to  create  opportunities  —  he 
only  asked  him  to  watch  for  them. 

One  favor  which  he  had  no  cause  to 
regret  he  granted  with  some  reluctance. 

186 


President's  Note  about  a  Post-office  Appointment,  with 


LIFE    AT    WHITE    HOUSE 

It  became  evident  before  they  left  Spring- 
field that  my  father  would  need  an  assist- 
ant, and  he  ventured  to  ask  that  his  friend, 
John  Hay,  be  allowed  to  accompany  them. 
Mr.  Lincoln  at  first  demurred :  "  I  can't 
take  all  Illinois  with  me ! "  he  said,  with  a 
whimsical  grimace. 

Occasionally  justice  and  common  sense 
inspired  him  to  benevolent  despotism  in  ap- 
pointments as  in  other  matters. 

"  Dear  Sir :  I  personally  wish  Jacob 
Freese  of  New  Jersey  to  be  appointed 
colonel  for  a  colored  regiment,  and  this  re- 
gardless of  whether  he  can  tell  the  exact 
shade  of  Julius  Caesar's  hair,"  was  one  of 
the  characteristic  notes  sent  to  Stanton. 
It  probably  made  the  choleric  Secretary  of 
War  sputter  with  wrath,  but  accomplished 
its  worthy  end. 

Although  Lincoln's  manner  was  one  of 

almost   unfailing   good   humor   and  quiet 

tolerance,  there  were  times  when  he  showed 

that  his  patience  had  limits.     When  the 

187 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

flood  of  place-seekers  was  at  its  height,  a 
delegation  came  to  urge  California  ap- 
pointments which  were  earnestly  opposed 
by  Lincoln's  early  friend,  Colonel  E.  D. 
Baker,  who  had  become  Senator  from  Ore- 
gon. The  spokesman  of  the  delegation, 
both  in  his  speech  and  in  the  papers  he 
presented,  made  bitter  and  criminal  accu- 
sations against  Baker,  which  the  President 
knew  to  be  unfounded.  He  intimated  as 
much,  but  the  accuser  persisted.  Lincoln 
heard  him  through  in  silence,  and  when  he 
had  finished  handed  him  back  the  papers. 

"  Keep  them,  sir,"  the  man  said.     "  I 
wish  you  to  keep  them.     They  are  yours." 

"  Mine  to   do  with  as  I  please  ?  "   the 
President  asked  quickly. 

"  Yes,"  was  the  reply. 

Mr.  Lincoln  stepped  to  the  fireplace, 
thrust  the  papers  between  the  blazing 
brands,  and  as  the  room  was  lighted  by  the 
fresh  flame  dismissed  the  interviewers  with 
a  stern  "  Good  morning,  gentlemen." 
-  188 


LIFE    AT    WHITE    HOUSE 

One  of  his  wearisome  and  unavoidable 
tasks  was  signing  commissions  sent  over 
every  day  from  the  War  and  Navy  De- 
partments. Every  appointment  and  pro- 
motion in  the  regular  army,  as  well  as 
many  in  the  volunteer  service,  necessitated 
a  new  commission.  These,  made  out  on 
heavy  parchment,  very  oily  and  hard  to 
write  upon,  would  be  placed  on  his  desk  in 
piles  six  or  eight  inches  high,  and  he  would 
sit  working  away  at  them  with  the  patient 
industry  of  a  laborer  sawing  wood. 

His  correspondence  also  took  much  time, 
though  he  read  only  about  one  in  a  hun- 
dred of  the  letters  addressed  to  him.  He 
rarely  dictated.  He  either  made  a  verbal 
or  written  summary  for  his  secretary,  or 
carefully  wrote  out  the  whole  himself  — 
and  frequently  carefully  copied  it.  All  his 
important  state  papers  and  political  letters 
were  signed  with  his  full  name.  His  signa- 
ture on  less  formal  documents  was  "  A.  Lin- 
coln." The  range  of  his  daily  correspond- 
18P 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ence  ran  the  whole  gamut  from  naming 
a  baby  to  the  most  important  national 
and  international  affairs,  and  in  addition 
he  made  many  endorsements,  some  of  them 
lengthy,  on  communications  he  did  not 
answer. 

"  O.  H.  P.  trying  to  resign  an  office 
which  he  does  not  hold,"  was  one  of  them. 
Another  read: 

"  It  seems  to  me  Mr.  C.  knows  nothing 
about  the  weather  in  advance.  He  told 
me  three  days  ago  that  it  would  not  rain 
again  till  the  thirtieth  of  April  or  first  of 
May.  It  is  raining  now,  and  has  been  for 
ten  hours.  I  cannot  spare  any  more  time 
to  Mr.  C.'*  Such  notes  were  apt  to  ex- 
press a  certain  finality. 

Among  the  most  beautiful  of  his  letters 
were  those  written  to  parents  whose  sons 
had  died  in  battle.  "  He  bore  the  sorrows 
of  the  nation  in  his  heart,"  as  John  Hay 
said.  No  amount  of  repetition  could  dull 
his  ears  to  the  pitiful  cry  of  bereavement. 
190 


Two  Characteristic  Endorsements,  and  a  Call  to  a  Special 
Cabinet  Meeting 


LIFE    AT    WHITE    HOUSE 

When  young  Ellsworth,  whom  he  knew 
personally,  was  killed  at  Alexandria,  one 
of  the  first  victims  of  the  war,  he  not  only 
wrote  to  his  parents,  but  directed  that  his 
body  be  brought  to  the  White  House  as  if 
he  were  his  own  son;  and  the  funeral  was 
held  in  the  great  East  Room. 

Gradually  under  the  strain  of  responsi- 
bility and  care,  his  demeanor  changed. 
He  was  just  as  cordial,  just  as  kindly; 
but  his  infectious  laughter  was  less  often 
heard;  and  from  brooding  on  serious  and 
weighty  things  he  acquired  an  air  of  de- 
tachment. "  Lincoln's  prevailing  mood  in 
later  years  was  one  of  meditation,"  my 
father  wrote.  "  Unless  engaged  in  con- 
versation, the  external  world  was  a  thing 
of  minor  interest.  Not  that  he  was  what 
is  called  absentminded.  He  did  not  for- 
get the  spectacles  on  his  nose,  and  his  eye 
and  ear  lost  no  sound  or  movement  about 
him  when  he  sat  writing  in  his  office  or 
passed  along  the  street.  But  while  he 
191 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

noted  external  incidents,  they  remained 
secondary.  His  mind  was  ever  busy  in 
reflection.  Sometimes  he  would  sit  for  an 
hour,  still  as  a  petrified  image,  his  soul 
absent  in  the  wide  realm  of  thought." 
Then  the  entrance  of  a  friend  would  sum- 
mon his  spirit  back,  the  kindling  eye 
and  quaint  remark  would  anticipate  the 
friendly  hand  clasp,  and  wit  and  practical 
common  sense  rule  the  interview. 

Even  a  President  as  hard  working  as 
Lincoln  had  to  have  relaxation.  He  used 
to  drive  late  in  the  afternoon;  though  this 
could  hardly  be  called  diversion,  since  his 
objective  point  was  apt  to  be  one  of  the 
earthworks  which  circled  Washington,  or 
one  of  the  military  hospitals. 

He  gave  much  attention  to  the  hos- 
pitals ;  especially  to  the  building  of  one 
which  should  be  a  model;  consulting  the 
doctor  in  charge  over  ingenious  devices  for 
the  comfort  of  the  wounded,  and  paying 
192 


LIFE    AT    WHITE    HOUSE 

for  some  of  them  out  of  his  own  pocket. 
He  also  provided  flower  seeds  to  turn  the 
square  in  which  it  stood  into  something  less 
dismal  than  a  waste  of  clay  and  weeds. 

In  his  visits  to  the  hospitals  he  gave  out 
far  more  vitality  and  sympathy  than  he 
gained.  "  There  was  no  medicine  equal 
to  the  cheerfulness  his  visit  inspired,  but 
its  effect  on  him  was  saddening  in  the  ex- 
treme," said  one  who  watched  him  on  such 
a  round. 

His  influence  upon  the  well  was  no  less 
marked  than  upon  the  sick.  A  nineteen- 
year-old  surgeon  who  was  detailed  to  take 
Mr.  Lincoln  through  the  hospital  at  City 
Point  just  a  week  before  the  assassination, 
never  forgot  leading  him  through  ward 
after  ward,  until  finally  they  came  to  that 
filled  with  sick  and  wounded  prisoners. 
With  a  feeling  of  patriotic  duty,  he  said : 
"  Mr.  President,  you  won't  want  to  go  in 
there;  they  are  only  rebels."  The  Presi- 
13  193 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

dent  stopped,  and  laying  his  large  hand 
on  his  shoulder  gently  answered,  "  You 
mean  Confederates." 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  quick  comprehension 
of  mechanical  principles,  and  found  both 
amusement  and  interest  in  the  cloud  of  in- 
ventors with  devices  important  or  vision- 
ary, that  the  war  brought  to  Washington. 
One  proposed  to  do  away  with  the  need  for 
bridges  by  giving  each  soldier  a  pair  of 
little  watertight  canoes,  one  for  each  foot. 
Another  had  an  epoch-making  scheme  for 
moving  artillery  by  means  of  iron-clad  bal- 
loons. Some  of  them  obtained  permission 
to  set  up  models  in  the  White  House  base- 
ment, and  the  grounds  south  of  the  Execu- 
tive Mansion  became  a  favorite  place  for 
trying  the  new  guns.  When  he  could  es- 
cape from  the  labors  of  the  office,  or  omit 
his  daily  drive,  Mr.  Lincoln  stole  away  to 
watch  the  experiments,  to  take  his  turn  at 
the  shooting,  and  enjoy  the  remarks  of  the 
bystanders.  He  quoted  with  deep  appre- 
194 


LIFE    AT    WHITE    HOUSE 

ciation  the  verdict  of  one  man,  who  com- 
demned  a  marvelous  gun  because  of  its 
slight  recoil.  "  It  would  not  do,"  he  said. 
"  Too  much  powder.  A  good  piece  of  au- 
dience should  n't  rekyle.  If  it  did  at  all, 
it  should  rekyle  a  little  forrid." 

Flag  raisings  and  reviews  became  as 
much  a  part  of  the  routine  as  breakfast. 
Lincoln's  first  Fourth  of  July  as  President 
was  marked  by  both  these  functions. 
"  One  pretty  incident  of  the  review,"  my 
father  wrote,  "  was  the  passing  of  the 
Garibaldi  Guards,  a  regiment  made  up  en- 
tirely of  foreigners,  whose  colonel's  com- 
mands in  French  were  translated  in 
process  of  transmission  to  the  men  into 
German,  Spanish,  Italian,  Hungarian,  and 
several  other  tongues.  Each  man  had 
stuck  a  flower  or  a  sprig  of  green  into  his 
hat,  and  as  the  successive  ranks  passed  the 
President,  they  took  them  out  and  threw 
them  toward  him,  until  he  stood  in  a  per- 
fect shower  of  leaves  and  blossoms."  One 
195 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

wonders  what  became  of  these  sons  of  the 
Old  World  who  paid  floral  tribute  to  the 
Son  of  the  Prairies.  They  were  sent 
across  the  Potomac,  "  and  having  an  idea 
that  there  was  a  fight  ahead,  marched  sing- 
ing the  Marseillaise,  with  loaves  of  bread 
stuck  on  the  points  of  their  bayonets  " — 
and  so,  out  of  history. 

An  ingenuous  soldier  boy  wrote  home  to 
his  family  in  Maine  that  at  the  flag-raising 
the  President  wore  plain  citizen's  clothes 
"  with  blue  kid  gloves  "  which  were  short 
at  the  wrist  and  showed  his  bare  arm  as  he 
pulled  the  rope  "  with  as  much  deliberation 
as  though  he  had  been  working  his  old  flat- 
boat  down  the  river." 

Sudden  emotion  choked  the  boy  as  the 
colors  floated  free,  and  a  burst  of  military 
music  and  cheering  filled  the  air.  But  it 
was  the  President's  smile  which  impressed 
him  most.  "  I  think  I  should  willingly 
ride  fifty  miles  to  vote  for  him  again  as  I 
did  last  November,"  he  wrote. 
196 


LIFE    AT    WHITE    HOUSE 

He  watched  the  71st  New  York  escort 
Mr.  Lincoln  back  to  the  White  House. 
"  I  wish  you  could  have  seen  him  march. 
He  paid  little  or  no  attention  to  the  music 
of  Dodworth,  but  paced  off  at  an  irregular 
rate  " —  the  pioneer  gait  that  he  never  ex- 
changed for  city-bred  movements  — "  while 
Mr.  Seward,  whose  arm  he  held,  was  seen 
to  keep  step,  his  *  left  foot  on  the  down 
beat.'  " 

The  boy  lingered  near  the  White  House 
until  he  saw  the  President  at  one  of  the 
windows,  spyglass  in  hand,  looking  toward 
the  Old  Dominion.  How  many  times  he 
used  that  glass  to  sweep  the  Virginia  hills ! 
How  many  times  he  and  Mr.  Seward  trav- 
eled the  same  road,  not  quite  in  step,  but 
one  in  purpose!  How  many,  many  times 
his.  smile  and  spirit  won  men  and  women 
as  they  captivated  that  boy ! 


197 


XI 

• 

PRESIDENT    LINCOLN,    HIS    WIFE    AND 
CHILDREN 

LINCOLN  was  an  unusually  affec- 
tionate and  indulgent  father.  A 
paragraph  in  a  letter  to  his  friend  Speed 
shows  that  he  and  his  wife  had  the  ex- 
periences and  emotions  common  to  proud 
parents. 

We  have  another  boy,  born  the  10th  of 
March.  He  is  very  much  such  a  child  as 
Bob  was  at  his  age,  rather  of  a  longer  order. 
Bob  is  "  short  and  low,"  and  I  expect  always 
will  be.  He  talks  very  plainly  —  almost  as 
plainly  as  anybody.  He  is  quite  smart 
enough.  I  sometimes  fear  that  he  is  one  of 
the  little  rare-ripe  sort  that  are  smarter  at 
198 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

about  five  than  ever  after.  He  has  a  great 
deal  of  that  sort  of  mischief  that  is  the  off- 
spring of  such  animal  spirits.  Since  I  began 
this  letter,  a  messenger  came  to  tell  me  Bob 
was  lost ;  but  by  the  time  I  reached  the  house 
his  mother  had  found  him  and  had  him 
whipped,  and  by  now,  very  likely,  he  is  run 
away  again. 

The  second  child  died  in  infancy,  but 
two  others  were  born  to  them,  both  boys. 
Their  father  liked  to  have  them  with  him, 
even  when  to  others  they  appeared  decid- 
edly troublesome.  If  they  swarmed  too 
persistently  over  his  person  he  brushed 
them  away  like  gnats,  but  he  never  turned 
them  out  of  the  room  or  reproved  them,  ex- 
cept in  the  mildest  manner.  When  they 
began  to  go  to  school  he  studied  with 
them. 

One  of  his  Springfield  neighbors,  re- 
calling how  constantly  they  were  in  his 
company,  tells  of  being  attracted  to  the 
door  one  day  by  hearing  children  cry.  He 
199 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

saw  Mr.  Lincoln  striding  by  with  two  of 
his  sons,  both  wailing  loudly. 

"  Why,  what  is  the  matter  with  the 
boys  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Just  what  is  the  matter  with  the 
whole  world,"  was  the  answer.  "  I  've  got 
three  walnuts,  and  each  wants  two." 

"  Bob,"  the  eldest,  showed  a  grasp  of 
principles  and  property  rights  in  dealing 
with  his  brothers  which  foreshadowed  suc- 
cess in  business  and  diplomacy.  Mr.  Lin- 
coln came  upon  his  youngest  clinging  like 
a  burr  to  Robert,  and  demanding  a  knife 
the  latter  held  in  his  hand.  "  Oh,  let  him 
have  it,  Bob,  to  keep  him  quiet,"  he  urged. 
"  No,"  Bob  replied.  "  It  is  my  knife,  and 
I  need  it  to  keep  me  quiet." 

"  He  promises  very  well,  considering  we 
never  controlled  him  much,"  the  father 
wrote  of  this  eldest  son. 

When  Lincoln  was  inaugurated  Robert 
had  just  entered  Harvard.  The  others, 
Willie  and  Thomas,  or  "  Tad,"  aged  ten 
200 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

and  eight,  respectively,  ranged  lawless  and 
lovable,  over  the  Executive  Mansion.  No 
room  was  sacred  from  their  intrusion;  no 
conference  too  weighty  to  be  broken  in 
upon  by  the  rush  of  their  onslaught. 
They  instituted  a  minstrel  show  in  the 
attic,  and  inserted  dogs,  cats,  goats  and 
ponies  into  various  crevices  of  the  domestic 
establishment. 

It  was  the  elder  of  these,  a  child  of  great 
promise,  bright  and  gentle  and  studious, 
who  sickened  and  died  in  February,  1862. 
"  A  fine  boy  of  eleven  years,  too  much 
idolized  by  his  parents,"  Attorney-General 
Bates  wrote  in  his  diary;  adding  that  the 
Government  departments  were  closed  on 
the  day  of  his  funeral  —  the  only  time, 
probably,  that  the  death  of  a  child  has 
been  so  observed  in  the  history  of  our 
country. 

Lincoln  allowed  his  bereavement  to  make 
no  difference  in  his  daily  tasks,  and  gave 
little  outward  sign  of  his  grief;  but  his 
201 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

heart  lavished  its  tenderness  on  his  young- 
est child,  Tad,  a  merry  warm-hearted 
little  lad,  who  interrupted  his  father's 
gravest  labors  with  impunity,  and  found 
safe  refuge  in  his  office  from  the  domestic 
authorities. 

He  must  have  been  a  winning  small  boy, 
in  spite  of  his  talent  for  keeping  himself 
and  others  in  hot  water,  for  even  the  gruff 
Secretary  of  War  succumbed,  and  in  a 
moment  of  indiscretion  commissioned  him 
a  lieutenant.  Tad's  next  exploit  was  to 
drill  the  household  servants,  and  one  night, 
to  relieve  the  regular  sentries,  and  put 
them  all  on  duty.  His  father,  thinking  it 
a  good  joke,  refused  to  interfere,  until  the 
small  officer,  wearied  by  his  authority,  fell 
asleep,  when  the  Commander-in-Chief  of 
the  Army  carried  him  tenderly  to  bed,  and 
then  went  downstairs  and  dismissed  the 
awkward  squad. 

The  boy,  running  in  and  out  among  the 
202 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

visitors  waiting  to  see  the  President,  be- 
came their  active  champion.  One  day  he 
rushed  into  his  father's  office  and  asked 
permission  to  introduce  some  "  friends," 
returning  with  a  delegation  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  been  dexterously  avoiding.  Once  in- 
side the  door,  he  stopped,  asked  the  name 
of  the  oldest  of  the  group,  presented  him 
to  his  father,  and  added,  "  Now,  Judge, 
you  introduce  the  rest !  "  The  President, 
fairly  caught,  took  him  on  his  knee,  kissed 
him,  told  him  he  had  introduced  his  friends 
like  a  gentleman,  and  made  the  best  of  an 
interview  which  could  not  be  satisfactory 
to  either  side. 

Lincoln's  love  for  children  did  not  stop 
with  his  own  sons.  He  was  greeted  with 
ecstasy  by  the  group  of  grandchildren 
who  roamed  over  the  country  place  of  F. 
P.  Blair,  Sr.,  a  few  miles  from  Washing- 
ton ;  and  they  remember  to  this  day  the 
abandon  with  which  he  entered  into  their 
203 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

games,  how  long  his  strides  were,  and  how 
far  his  coat  tails  sailed  out  behind  him  as 
he  ran. 

When  children  came  to  him  on  business 
in  the  Executive  Office,  as  they  sometimes 
did,  he  listened  to  them  with  the  same 
courtesy  accorded  their  elders,  never  deny- 
ing their  requests  on  account  of  their 
youth.  Those  who  criticized  the  Presi- 
dent's merciful  unwillingness  to  impose  the 
death  penalty,  dreaded  to  see  a  woman 
with  a  child  in  her  arms  enter  that  room. 
They  knew  she  would  have  a  speedy  and 
sympathetic  hearing.  "  It  was  the  baby 
that  did  it,  madam,"  Edward,  the  colored 
usher,  observed  to  one  wife  who  passed  out, 
radiantly  tearful. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  was  a  Kentuckian,  and  the 
fact  that  some  of  her  relatives  fought  in 
the  Southern  armies  was  enough  to  keep 
gossip  busy  with  rumors  of  her  tacit  if  not 
open  sympathy  with  the  rebellion  —  gos- 
sip which  did  her  grievous  wrong,  and 
204 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

added  one  more  to  the  daily  trials  of  the 
President.  It  was  a  thing  of  which  he 
could  take  no  public  notice;  but  at  one 
time  he  felt  constrained  to  tell  several  mem- 
bers of  the  cabinet  his  side  of  the  story 
then  current.  "  He  gave  the  details  with 
frankness  and  without  disguise.  .  .  . 
They  did  him  credit  on  a  subject  of  scandal 
and  abuse,"  one  of  them  wrote. 

The  President's  attitude  toward  his  wife 
had  something  of  the  paternal  in  it,  al- 
most as  though  she  were  a  child,  under  his 
protection.  It  is  said  that  when  President 
Taylor  offered  to  make  him  Governor  of 
Oregon  Territory,  shortly  after  the  end  of 
his  term  in  Congress,  Lincoln's  refusal  was 
largely  because  of  her  unwillingness  to  go 
so  far  into  the  wilderness. 

Personally  he  was  singularly  indifferent 
to  physical  surroundings,  and  neither  the 
wilderness,  had  they  gone  there,  nor  the 
stately  proportions  and  practical  incon- 
venience of  the  Executive  Mansion  when 
205 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

they  actually  experienced  them,  affected 
him  in  the  least.  But,  like  many  another 
good  American  husband,  it  pleased  him  to 
see  his  wife  enjoying  luxury;  and  in 
March,  1861,  the  White  House  must  have 
seemed  to  both  of  them  a  very  grand  home 
indeed. 

During  the  war,  as  for  many  years 
after,  the  President's  family  and  the  busi- 
ness of  state  were  housed  in  uncongenial 
intimacy.  The  family  lived  upstairs  in 
the  western  end  of  the  building,  the  of- 
fices were  in  the  east  end;  the  state  apart- 
ments were  below;  and  visitors  and  office- 
seekers  blocked  anterooms  and  halls;  while 
Tad  split  the  ears  of  cabinet  ministers  and 
long-suffering  clerks,  as,  with  mischief  and 
drum,  he  did  what  he  could  to  convert  this 
"  dwelling-place  but  not  a  habitation,"  into 
a  real  home. 

The  Lincolns  were  the  Western-most 
people  who  had  inhabited  the  White  House, 
and  were  as  new  to  official  ceremony  as  to 
206 


4/  <usisr£s 


* 


s/W. 


A  Presidential  Tea  Party 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

stately  surroundings.  The  President,  how- 
ever, had  his  native  dignity  and  his  term  in 
Congress  to  fall  back  upon;  while  Mrs. 
Lincoln  had  her  woman's  wits  and  that  ease 
in  fitting  into  more  luxurious  surroundings 
which  is  the  birthright  of  every  living  crea- 
ture, from  protoplasm  to  potentate. 

On  request  the  State  Department  fur- 
nished elaborate  lists  of  officials  and  func- 
tions, along  with  certain  helpful  details. 
From  that  source  or  elsewhere  they  were 
advised  never  to  say  "  Sir "  to  a  titled 
foreigner ;  and  that  "  at  evening  calls  of 
diplomats  it  is  well  for  the  President  to  go 
down."  The  hour  for  state  dinners  was 
set  sternly  at  seven.  The  family  might 
dine  at  six.  A  memorandum  prescribed 
"  dress  for  gentlemen  "  as  "  coat,  black 
dress,  or  ditto  blue  with  bright  buttons  — 
(never  wear  frocks)" — which  seems  to 
press  the  Lincoln  regime  back  into  remote 
picturesqueness. 

With  these  hints,  and  their  natural  good 
207 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

sense,  they  got  on  as  well  as  most  new  ad- 
ministrations. One  of  the  hints  was  that 
"  parties,  if  given,  must  be  entirely  in- 
formal or  accidental."  After  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln had  been  installed  about  a  year  she 
determined  to  ignore  this  rule,  and  sent  out 
invitations  for  a  party  which  was  not  at 
all  "  accidental."  Society  was  rocked  to 
its  center,  and  the  local  papers  printed  col- 
umns detailing  the  elegance  of  everybody's 
manners  and  costumes,  not  forgetting  the 
foreigners  who  must  never  be  addressed  as 
"  Sir,"  and  ending  with  an  inventory  of 
the  sugar  ornaments  on  the  supper  table. 
Notes  made  in  the  house  were  less  sac- 
charine. "  Half  the  city  is  jubilant  at  be- 
ing invited,  while  the  other  half  is  furious 
at  being  left  out  in  the  cold.  It  was  a 
very  respectable,  if  not  brilliant  success. 
Many  of  the  invited  guests  did  not  come, 
so  the  rooms  were  not  at  all  overcrowded. 
.  .  .  Those  who  were  here  (some  of  them 
having  sought  and  almost  begged  their  in- 
208 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

vitations)  will  be  forever  happy  in  the 
recollection.  .  .  .  Suffice  it  to  say.  that 
the  East  Room  looked  very  beautiful ;  that 
the  supper  was  magnificent,  and  that  when 
all  was  over,  by  way  of  an  interesting  little 
finale,  a  couple  of  the  servants,  much 
moved  by  wrath  and  wine,  had  a  jolly  little 
knock-down  in  the  kitchen,  damaging  in  its 
effects  to  sundry  heads  and  champagne 
bottles.  This  last  item  is  strictly  entre 
nous." 

That  was  the  culmination  of  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln's social  achievements.  The  very  next 
of  these  confidential  letters,  enclosing  a 
newspaper  account  of  the  great  party, 
adds :  "  Since  then  one  of  the  President's 
little  boys  has  been  so  sick  as  to  absorb  all 
his  attention."  From  that  time  on  pri- 
vate and  public  sorrow  put  an  end  to  all 
except  the  formal  and  official  entertaining. 

The  traditional  state  dinners  and  recep- 
tions took  place;  and  there  was  music  in 
the  summer  on  the  White  House  lawn; 
'4  209 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

when  occasionally  the  noise  of  heavy  guns 
would  draw  the  crowd  away  from  the  band 
down  to  the  river's  edge  to  gaze  across  at 
the  Virginia  hills. 

The  great  public  receptions  were  not 
disagreeable  to  the  President,  and  he 
seemed  surprised  when  people  commiserated 
him  upon  having  to  endure  them.  He 
would  shake  hands  with  thousands  of  peo- 
ple, seemingly  unconscious  of  what  he  was 
doing,  murmuring  some  monotonous  salu- 
tation, his  eye  dim  and  thoughts  far  away, 
until  a  familiar  face,  or  the  sight  of  a  lit- 
tle child  would  focus  his  attention. 
"  Hurrah  for  Mist'  Linthon ! "  a  small  cit- 
izen lisped  as  he  came  up,  convoyed  by 
his  proud  parent.  "  Hurrah  for  Mister 
You !  "  the  President  responded,  gathering 
him  in  his  arms,  and  giving  him  a  mighty 
toss  toward  the  ceiling. 

Many  people  came  primed  with  a  speech 
to  deliver,  but  unless  it  was  compressed  into 
the  smallest  possible  space,  it  never  got  ut- 
210 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

terance.  If  it  were  brief  enough,  and 
caught  the  President's  fancy,  it  received  a 
swift  answer.  One  night  an  elderly  gen- 
tleman from  Buffalo  said,  "  Up  our  way 
we  believe  in  God  and  Abraham  Lincoln." 

"  My  friend,  you  are  more  than  half 
right ! "  was  the  President's  reply  as  he 
passed  him  on  to  the  next  in  line. 

Lincoln  had  grown  to  manhood  and 
prominence  in  a  period  of  grave  formality 
of  manner,  in  a  locality  where  old  Southern 
traditions  of  good  breeding  prevailed. 
Dignity  was  as  natural  to  him  as  honest 
living  or  straight  thinking.  In  his  audi- 
ences with  diplomats  he  lost  nothing  in 
comparison  with  men  trained  in  European 
courts.  His  natural  poise  and  sense  of  fit- 
ness made  both  words  and  bearing  unem- 
barrassed. Yet  after  complying  with  all 
the  requirements  of  custom,  his  kindly  wit 
was  apt  to  find  outlet.  When  Lord  Lyons 
went  to  the  White  House  to  announce  the 
marriage  of  the  Prince  of  Wales,  he  made 
211 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

the  customary  formal  speech.  The  Presi- 
dent answered  in  like  manner ;  then,  taking 
the  bachelor  diplomat  by  the  hand,  he  sup- 
plemented it  with  a  genial,  "  And  now, 
Lord  Lyons,  go  thou  and  do  likewise !  " 

Contrary  to  popular  belief  nobody  pre- 
sumed to  call  Lincoln  "  Abe,"  or  had,  since 
he  was  a  boy.  "  Honest  Old  Abe  "  was 
indeed  an  expression  country-wide,  but  it 
was  used  in  speaking  about  him,  not  to 
him.  There  was  that  in  his  bearing, 
friendly  as  it  was,  which  forbade  familiar- 
ity. His  own  son  has  told  the  writer  that 
even  his  mother  addressed  her  husband  as 
"  Mr.  Lincoln."  Sometimes  in  talking  to 
men  much  younger  than  himself,  he  called 
them  by  their  first  names,  but  with  those 
of  his  own  generation,  even  intimates  of 
his  early  years,  his  nearest  approach  to 
familiarity  was  in  dropping  the  prefix 
"  Mr."  In  this  -he  followed  the  well-estab- 
lished custom  of  the  time  and  place. 

He  was  as  temperate  in  his  speech  as  in 
212 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

his  appetites.  His  innate  honesty  forbade 
his  saying  things  he  did  not  mean,  while 
his  appreciation  of  the  value  of  words 
made  him  differentiate  between  their  use 
and  abuse  as  he  would  between  the  use  and 
abuse  of  gold.  He  was  generous,  but  no 
spendthrift  with  either.  His  hearty  "  I 
am  glad  to  see  you,"  accompanied  by  a 
warm  handclasp  and  his  smile,  meant  more 
than  another  man's  extravagant  compli- 
ments. If  he  was  not  glad  he  did  not  say 
so.  "  Good  morning,"  or  "  What  can  I 
do  for  you?  "  or  some  equally  unperjured 
greeting  sufficed.  This  strict  truthfulness 
in  little  things  gives  added  point  to  his  oc- 
casional vivid  statements;  like  that  to  Mr. 
Browning  about  the  first  weeks  of  his  ad- 
ministration, or  his  remark  to  General 
Schenck  that  he  could  find  it  in  his  heart  to 
pity  Satan  himself. 

With  his  wealth  of  sympathy,  his  con- 
science, and  his  unflinching  sense  of  jus- 
tice, he  was  predestined  to  sorrow.     There 
213 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

was  in  his  nature  a  strain  of  deep  melan- 
choly, a  trait  not  uncommon  among  the 
pioneers.  In  his  youth,  during  the  years 
when  blood  pounds  fastest,  and  desires  and 
aspiration  protest  loudest  against  the  stern 
discipline  of  fact,  it  came  upon  him  time 
and  again;  and  because  he  was  different 
from  his  fellows  —  a  finer  instrument,  re- 
sponding more  readily  to  calls  of  the  spirit 
—  it  hurt  cruelly.  "  If  what  I  feel  were 
equally  distributed  to  the  whole  human 
family,  there  would  not  be  one  cheerful  face 
on  the  earth."  From  one  so  temperate  in 
speech,  these  words  mean  much. 

By  the  time  he  reached  middle  life  the 
sharpness  of  these  attacks  had  been  lived 
down,  but  a  melancholy  underlay  all  his 
moods  —  even  his  merriest.  He  was  still 
vibrant  to  chords  of  feeling. 

"  I  believe  I  feel  trouble  in  the  air  before 
it  comes,"  he  said,  entering  the  room  of  his 
secretaries  to  bring  news  of  a  military  dis- 
aster which  had  just  reached  him. 
214 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

"  I  am  superstitious,"  he  admitted  fre- 
quently, but  in  the  next  breath  was  apt  to 
give  a  good  and  sensible  reason  for  what 
he  was  pleased  to  call  his  superstition.  He 
placed  enough  importance  on  dreams  to 
tell  them;  not  only  his  recurrent  dream  of 
the  ship  and  the  dark  shore,  but  others. 
Once  he  sent  a  despatch  to  his  wife,  advis- 
ing her  to  put  away  Tad's  pistol,  because 
he  had  had  "  an  ugly  dream  "  about  him. 

In  unguarded  moments  he  gave  way  to 
grief  with  complete  unconsciousness.  The 
gray,  drawn  look  of  his  face  in  mental 
pain ;  his  "  ghostlike  "  appearance  as  he 
walked  up  and  down  the  room,  exclaiming, 
"  My  God,  my  God !  what  will  the  country 
say  ?  " ;  the  way  the  tears  ran  unheeded 
down  his  cheeks  while  he  inspected  the 
Monitor  and  lived  again  in  imagination 
that  memorable  battle ;  his  stumbling  steps 
and  hands  pressed  to  his  heart  as  he  went 
from  McClellan's  headquarters,  heedless  of 
the  sentinel's  salute,  on  learning  of  Col- 
215 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

onel  Baker's  death  —  betrayed  how  com- 
pletely he  forgot  himself  in  grief. 

Fortunately  his  joy  was  as  spontaneous 
as  a  child's.  No  amount  of  experience 
made  him  callous  to  either  happiness  or 
pain.  "  I  myself  will  telegraph  the  news 
to  General  Meade !  "  he  cried,  seizing  his 
hat  when  Secretary  Welles  brought  word 
that  Vicksburg  had  fallen.  Then  he 
stopped,  his  face  beaming,  caught  Welles's 
hand  and  almost  embracing  him  cried, 
"  What  can  we  do  for  the  Secretary  of  the 
Navy  for  this  glorious  intelligence?  He 
is  always  giving  us  good  news.  I  cannot 
tell  you  my  joy  over  the  result.  It  is 
great,  Mr.  Welles,  it  is  great ! " 

Yet  such  was  his  self-control  that  he 
could  make  his  face  a  mask  when  he  saw 
fit,  and  it  was  not  often  that  casual  vis- 
itors realized  the  depth  of  his  feeling.  One 
secret  of  his  success  had  been  his  power  of 
inspiring  confidence  in  his  followers.  One 
duty  of  his  high  office  he  felt  to  be  keeping 
216 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

up  the  spirits  of  his  countrymen  during  the 
dark  hours  of  war.  He  had  need  of  his 
great  physical  endurance,  and  all  his  self- 
control.  Many  were  the  sleepless  nights 
he  passed  after  that  first  Sunday  when  he 
remained  in  his  office  until  dawn,  listening 
to  the  excited  tales  of  those  who  had  wit- 
nessed sights  and  sounds  of  the  battle  of 
Bull  Run. 

His  was  the  faith  which  moves  moun- 
tains. He  could  even  extract  a  bitter  com- 
fort from  sad  news.  Being  told  of  heavy 
firing  in  the  direction  of  Knoxville,  at  a 
time  when  he  was  very  anxious,  he  said 
that  anything  which  showed  that  General 
Burnside  was  not  overwhelmed,  was  cheer- 
ing. "  Like  Sallie  Carter,  when  she  heard 
one  of  her  children  cry,  he  could  say, 
*  there  goes  one  of  my  young  ones,  not 
dead  yet,  bless  the  Lord ! '  " 

He  wore  his  greatness  so  naturally  that 
he  could  afford  to  jest.  Living  by  the 
same  rule  in  matters  great  and  small, 
217 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

whether  signing  an  emancipation  procla- 
mation or  attending  to  the  trifling  demands 
of  a  child,  he  did  not  have  to  put  on  added 
solemnity  for  great  occasions,  and  he  gath- 
ered what  comfort  and  relief  he  could  from 
the  flickering  bits  of  humor  that  crossed 
his  path. 

Although  wanting  in  the  language  of 
gallantry,  he  was  not  incapable  of  turning 
a  neat  compliment.  The  artist  Carpenter 
has  told  of  one  which  would  have  pressed 
Chesterfield  hard.  An  enthusiastic  lady 
gave  the  President  an  entirely  superfluous 
bouquet.  The  situation  was  momentarily 
embarrassing,  but  "  with  no  appearance 
of  discomposure,  he  stooped  down,  took 
the  flowers,  and  looking  from  them  into  the 
sparkling  eyes  and  radiant  face  of  the 
lady,  said,  with  a  gallantry  I  was  unpre- 
pared for,  '  Really,  madam,  if  you  give 
them  to  me,  ancj  they  are  mine,  I  think  I 
cannot  possibly  make  so  good  a  use  of  them 
as  to  present  them  to  you  in  return ! ' 
218 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

He  was  the  most  abstemious  of  men. 
Not  that  he  remained  on  principle  a  total 
abstainer  as  he  was  during  part  of  his  early 
life ;  but  he  never  cared  for  wines  or  liquors 
of  any  sort,  and  never  used  tobacco. 
Judge  Lawrence  Weldon  once  overheard 
Douglas  trying  to  ridicule  him  on  this 
point. 

"  What !  You  a  temperance  man  ?  " 
Douglas  asked. 

"  No,"  drawled  Lincoln,  with  a  smile. 
"  I  'm  not  a  temperance  man ;  but  I  'm 
temperate  in  this  —  to  wit  —  I  don't 
drink." 

At  table  he  ate  sparingly,  without  seem- 
ing to  know  what  he  was  eating.  When 
Mrs.  Lincoln  was  away  he  sometimes  ab- 
sentmindedly  omitted  the  formality  of  din- 
ing altogether.  To  some  visitors  who 
apologized  for  sending  in  their  cards  at 
the  dinner  hour,  he  replied : 

"  It    makes    no    difference.     When    my 
wife  is  away  I  just  browse  around." 
219 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

It  was  the  company,  not  the  meat, 
which  interested  him.  Carl  Schurz,  for 
whom  he  had  a  strong  liking,  once  asked 
leave  to  present  his  German  brother-in- 
law,  a  young  merchant  from  Hamburg. 
Mr.  Lincoln  told  him  to  bring  him  the  next 
day  about  lunch  time,  adding  casually  that 
there  would  be  something  to  eat.  Schurz 
had  no  little  difficulty  in  quieting  his 
guest's  trepidation.  His  assertion  that 
there  would  be  no  court  etiquette  or  for- 
mality whatever  was  too  wild  for  the  for- 
eigner's belief.  When  he  found  himself 
greeted  like  an  old  friend,  and  the  three 
sat  down  alone  to  luncheon,  he  pulled  him- 
self out  of  his  stupefaction,  and  answered 
entertainingly  the  many  questions  about 
Hamburg  with  which  his  host  plied  him. 
The  meal  ended  in  anecdotes  and  laughter ; 
and  as  they  left  the  White  House  the 
young  German  was  vainly  trying  to  find 
words  in  which  to  express  his  puzzled  ad- 
miration for  the  man  who  had  risen  from 
.  220 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

peasant  to  ruler,  and,  with  so  much  dig- 
nity, remained  so  unconscious  of  self. 

To  his  two  secretaries  he  was  the  em- 
bodiment of  kindness  and  friendliness. 
For  a  time  they  occupied  a  room  in  the 
Executive  Mansion,  and  saw  him,  literally, 
day  and  night.  Like  boys,  they  had  their 
own  names  for  him.  "  The  Tycoon  "  was 
their  favorite,  with  "  The  Ancient  "  a  close 
second.  When  their  admiration  passed  all 
bounds  they  gave  him  the  comprehensive 
title,  "  The  American." 

"  What  a  man  it  is,"  wrote  John  Hay 
in  his  diary,  after  detailing  a  nocturnal 
visit  of  the  President,  who  came  with  a 
volume  of  Hood  in  his  hand,  to  read  them 
something  which  struck  his  fancy.  "  Oc- 
cupied all  day  with  matters  of  vast  mo- 
ment, deeply  anxious  about  the  fate  of  the 
greatest  army  in  the  world,  with  his  own 
fame  and  fortune  hanging  on  the  events  of 
the  passing  hour,  he  has  such  wealth  of 
simple  bonhomie  and  good  fellowship  that 
221  . 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

he  gets  out  of  bed  and  perambulates  the 
house  in  his  shirt  to  find  us  that  we  may 
share  with  him  the  fun  of  poor  Hood's  lit- 
tle conceits." 

Personally  Lincoln  was  very  brave. 
When  he  visited  the  army  at  the  front  and 
reviewed  the  troops,  he  was  the  cause  of 
much  anxiety  to  the  commanders,  because 
his  tall  figure,  made  taller  still  by  the 
"  stove-pipe  "  hat  he  habitually  wore,  ren- 
dered him  a  conspicuous  and  unmistakable 
target  for  the  enemy.  When  General 
Early's  troops  came  within  a  few  miles  of 
Washington  he  was  actually  under  fire  at 
Fort  Stevens,  so  interested  in  watching  de- 
velopments that  he  was  quite  impatient  at 
being  made  to  leave  his  exposed  position. 
General  Butler  confessed  that  no  one  ever 
gave  him  a  fright  equal  to  Lincoln,  be- 
cause of  his  calm  disregard  for  personal 
safety. 

"  The  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army 
must  n't  show  any  cowardice  in  the  pres- 
•  222 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

ence  of  his  soldiers,  however  he  may  feel," 
was  his  laughing  reply. 

But  no  instance  of  his  complete  forget- 
fulness  of  danger  equals  his  entry  into 
Richmond,  when  he  walked  for  two  miles 
or  more,  practically  unescorted,  through 
streets  of  silent  houses  behind  whose  closed 
blinds  despairing  women  and  sad-eyed  men 
looked  on  the  joy-crazed  negroes  who  sur- 
rounded him,  calling  down  blessings  upon 
his  head  with  all  the  fervent  picturesque- 
ness  of  their  race. 

Lincoln's  ceremonious  uncovering  in  an- 
swer to  the  sweeping  obeisance  of  a  bent 
and  grizzled  negro  whose  twisted  limbs 
and  white  hairs  betokened  the  labors  and 
injustice  heaped  upon  the  race,  is  one 
of  the  most  impressive  and  dramatic  in- 
cidents of  the  war.  But  to  the  white  on- 
lookers in  the  houses,  inflamed  by  passion 
and  made  bitter  by  defeat,  it  must  have 
borne  a  different  aspect.  A  bullet  might 
very  easily  have  sped  from  behind  one  of 
223 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

those  forbidding  shutters.  To^the  honor 
of  Richmond,  if  the  temptation  came,  it 
was  thrust  aside,  and  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  its  conquering  host  passed  in 
safety  into  the  house  lately  occupied  by  the 
President  of  the  Confederacy. 

The  reverie  into  which  he  fell  as  he 
rested  in  Jefferson  Davis's  own  chair  was 
so  serious  and  so  deep  that  the  aide  on 
duty  did  not  dare  address  him.  When 
General  Weitzel,  in  command  of  the  con- 
quered city,  reported,  and  together  the 
two  passed  through  the  burned  and  dev- 
astated portions  of  the  town  to  Libby 
Prison  and  Castle  Thunder,  where  memory 
would  have  its  way,  the  general  turned  to 
him  and  asked  what  he  was  to  do  about 
the  conquered  people. 

Lincoln's  reply  was  that  he  did  not  wish 
to  give  orders  upon  that  subject.  "  But," 
he  said,  in  his  kindly  way,  "  if  I  were  in 
your  place,  I  'd  let  'em  up  easy.  Let  'em 
up  easy." 

224 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

Walt  Whitman,  seeing  the  President 
drive  by  seated  beside  his  wife,  his  carriage 
drawn  by  "  only  two  horses,  and  they  noth- 
ing extra,"  thought  Lincoln  a  very  ordi- 
nary-looking man.  He  probably  thought 
so  himself,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  he  was  as 
indifferent  to  his  personal  appearance  as 
we  have  been  led  to  suppose.  There  were 
too  many  passing  references  in  his  speeches 
and  in  conversation,  to  warrant  the  belief 
that  he  gave  it  no  thought.  One  or  more 
of  his  stories  refer  to  it ;  he  spoke  of  it  at 
least  twice  in  his  debates  with  Douglas ;  he 
said  to  Mr.  Chittenden  that  though  he 
"  did  not  set  up  for  a  beauty  "  he  thought 
the  people  of  the  South  would  not  find  him 
so  ugly  or  so  black  as  he  had  been  painted. 
He  told  John  Hay  of  his  dream  in  which 
a  party  of  plain  people  began  to  comment 
on  his  appearance,  saying  he  was  a  very 
common-looking  man,  to  which  he  replied, 
"  the  Lord  prefers  common-looking  peo- 
ple, that  is  the  reason  he  makes  so  many 
'5  225 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

of  them."  His  shuddering  comment  on  a 
portrait  of  himself  was  that  it  was  "  hor- 
ribly like."  And  there  is  the  final  bit  of 
evidence  that  he  took  the  advice  of  a  little 
girl,  a  total  stranger,  who  wrote  to  him 
during  the  campaign,  suggesting  with 
childish  candor  that  he  would  look  better 
if  he  wore  whiskers. 

We  know  that  he  was  proud  of,  or  at 
least  interested  in,  his  great  height,  and 
took  a  boyish  delight  in  measuring  himself 
with  any  exceptionally  tall  man  he  met  — 
to  the  astonishment,  and  sometimes  to  the 
deep  embarrassment  of  the  latter ;  and  that 
when  he  had  a  chance  to  exhibit  his  strength 
of  arm  —  how  far  he  could  throw,  or  how 
clean  and  deep  a  cut  he  could  make  with 
an  ax  —  he  seized  the  opportunity,  and 
showed  an  ingenuous  pride  in  the  excellence 
of  his  performance. 

The   probability   is   that  he  was   fully 
aware  of  the  worst  aspect  of  his  personal 
appearance,  and  regretted  it;  and  had  no 
226 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

notion  of  its  best.  He  was  a  huge  spare 
man,  slightly  stooping,  who  walked  with 
the  peculiar  slow  woods-and-fields  move- 
ment of  the  Western  pioneer ;  and  who  sat, 
as  tall  people  have  to  sit,  on  chairs  made 
for  shorter  folk,  not  erect,  but  disposing  of 
their  long  limbs  as  best  they  may.  A 
sculptor  who  made  most  careful  measure- 
ments and  studies  from  photographs,  tells 
us  that,  from  a  sculptor's  point  of  view, 
Lincoln's  proportions  were  quite  perfect. 
So  much  for  the  frame.  It  was  the  indwell- 
ing spirit  which  transformed  it  and  baf- 
fled description.  When  sitting  withdrawn 
and  musing,  one  saw  only  a  sad  sallow  man, 
on  whom  the  clothes  hung  loosely.  In  the 
glow  and  excitement  of  public  speaking  he 
was  singularly  handsome  —  at  times  seemed 
almost  inspired.  When  he  looked  into  the 
eyes  of  a  fellow  being  in  trouble,  he  had 
the  most  tenderly  sympathetic  face  in  the 
world. 

My  father  strongly  denied  that  Lincoln 
227 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

was  careless  in  his  dress.  He  said  that 
Lincoln's  clothes  were  always  scrupulously 
neat,  and  were  in  accord  with  his  means  and 
his  surroundings.  Reminiscences  of  the 
period  before  his  Presidency  describe  him 
as  wearing  a  short-waisted  black  dress  coat, 
and  trousers  not  too  long.  The  West  was 
even  less  rigid  and  progressive  than  the 
East  in  matters  of  costume,  and  at  that 
period  we  were  not  yet  far  away  from  the 
days  when  the  cut  of  coat  which  is  now  a 
badge  of  servitude  before  six  p.  M.  and  of 
emancipation  after  that  hour,  was  the  con- 
servative garment  by  daylight  for  all  men 
free,  white,  and  over  twenty-one. 

The  gentleman  who  met  Mr.  Lincoln 
when  he  went  to  deliver  the  Cooper  Insti- 
tute speech  tells  how  he  accompanied  him 
to  his  room  at  the  hotel,  and  saw  him  open 
his  grip-sack  and  shake  out  a  new  suit  of 
black  broadcloth,  which  though  carefully 
packed,  had  become  a  mass  of  wrinkles. 
He  hung  it  up,  trusting  optimistically  that 
228 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

the  creases  would  disappear  before  he  had 
to  put  it  on.  There  is  something  rather 
pathetic  in  the  picture  of  this  great  man 
doing  his  inadequate  best  to  appear  suit- 
ably clad  before  his  Eastern  audience. 
The  idea  of  sending  his  suit  to  be  pressed 
never  crossed  his  mind.  That  was  not  the 
way  things  were  managed  in  his  simple 
household. 

He  never  forgot  the  dignity  of  his  of- 
fice, but  he  could  not  take  its  pomp  and 
ceremony  seriously.  That  it  could  be  ex- 
pected to  interfere  with  his  simple  and  un- 
affected demeanor  as  an  individual,  he  re- 
fused to  admit.  He  wished  to  be  free  to 
come  and  go  as  he  chose.  His  axiom  that 
"  he  who  would  be  no  slave  must  consent  to 
have  no  slave  "  applied  in  his  own  mind,  as 
truly  to  himself  as  to  mankind  in  the  ab- 
stract. His  propensity  for  roaming  about 
Lafayette  Square,  or  between  the  old  War 
Department  and  the  White  House,  late  at 
night,  alone,  or  accompanied  only  by  one 
229 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

of  his  secretaries,  filled  those  who  knew  of 
the  habit  with  dismay.  He  admitted  that 
he  ran  a  certain  risk  of  assassination,  but 
contended  that  the  only  way  to  guard 
against  that  effectively,  was  to  shut  him- 
self up  in  an  iron  box,  where  he  could  not 
possibly  perform  the  duties  of  President. 
Any  measure  short  of  that  seemed  to  him 
useless.  "  Why  put  up  the  bars,"  he  said, 
"  when  the  fence  is  down  all  around  ?  " 

The  Secretary  of  War  proposed  that  the 
Adjutant-General  be  detailed  to  attend 
him.  He  answered  with  characteristic 
courtesy  and  decision : 

MY  DEAR  SIR:  On  reflection  I  think  it 
will  not  do,  as  a  rule,  for  the  Adjutant-Gen- 
eral to  attend  me  wherever  I  go;  not  that  I 
have  any  objection  to  his  presence,  but  that 
it  would  be  an  uncompensating  encumbrance 
both  to  him  and  to  me.  When  it  shall  occur 
to  me  to  go  anywhere,  I  wish  to  be  free  to  go 
at  once,  and  not  to  have  to  notify  the  Adju- 
tant-General and  wait  till  he  can  get  ready. 
230 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

It  is  better,  too,  for  the  public  service  that  he 
shall  give  his  time  to  the  business  of  his 
office,  and  not  to  personal  attendance  on  me. 
While  I  thank  you  for  the  kindness  of  the 
suggestion,  my  view  of  the  matter  is  as  I  have 
stated. 

When  it  was  finally  decided  that  a  guard 
must  be  maintained  at  the  White  House, 
and  an  escort  of  cavalry  must  accompany 
him  on  his  daily  drive,  he  submitted, 
though  not  without  humorous  protest. 

"  Why,  Mrs.  Lincoln  and  I  cannot  hear 
ourselves  talk  for  the  clatter  of  their  sabers 
and  spurs ;  and  some  of  them  appear  to  be 
new  hands  and  very  awkward,  so  that  I  am 
more  afraid  of  being  shot  by  the  accidental 
discharge  of  a  carbine  or  revolver,  than  of 
any  attempt  upon  my  life  by  a  roving 
squad  of  *  Jeb  '  Stuart's  cavalry." 

A  guard  was,  however,  only  a  common 

precaution,  especially  during  the  summer 

months,  when  Lincoln  rode  or  drove  out 

through  wooded  roads  to  spend  the  nights 

231 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

at  the  Soldiers'  Home,  returning  to  the  Ex- 
ecutive Mansion  in  the  early  morning.  He 
acknowledged  this,  and  then  proceeded 
with  his  usual  artless  democracy  to  turn 
official  etiquette  topsy-turvy  by  haling 
General  Meade  out  of  the  War  Department 
to  be  presented  to  the  obscure  captain  of 
his  new  guard,  on  the  simple  ground  that 
both  were  from  Pennsylvania.  Stanton 
and  the  rest  might  post  guards  all  around 
the  lot,  but  no  power  on  earth  could 
prevent  his  treating  them  like  men  and 
brothers. 

He  invited  the  captain  to  share  his  early 
and  frugal  breakfast,  and  the  captain 
thought  him  the  kindest  and  pleasantest 
gentlemen  he  ever  met.  "  He  never  spoke 
unkindly  of  any  one,  and  always  spoke  of 
the  rebels  as  '  those  Southern  gentlemen.' ' 

The  captain  used  to  knock  at  his  door  at 
half  past  six  or  seven  in  the  morning,  and 
usually  found  him  reading,  though  some- 
times still  busy  with  his  toilet.  "  All 
232 


HIS    WIFE    AND    CHILDREN 

right.  Just  wait  a  moment,  while  I  repair 
damages,"  he  called  one  morning,  when 
caught  in  the  act  of  sewing  on  a  "  vital 
button." 

As  a  stickler  for  official  ceremony  Lin- 
coln was  really  hopeless.  He  took  most 
unpardonable  liberties  with  established 
custom,  and  disconcerting  short  cuts  to  re- 
sults. Not  only  would  he  sew  on  his  own 
buttons,  or  bring  a  general  downstairs  to 
be  introduced  to  a  captain  if  he  chose; 
but  more  than  once,  in  his  anxiety  to 
get  first-hand  and  correct  information  in 
.the  military  and  diplomatic  service,  he  in- 
vited subordinates  to  report  directly  to  him 
instead  of  through  regular  official  channels. 
No  wonder  men  whose  minds  worked  only 
inside  a  binding  of  red  tape  were  scandal- 
ized. 


233 


XII 

• 
THOSE    IN    AUTHORITY 

LINCOLN  took  his  Presidential  rivals 
into  his  cabinet,  and  compelled  them 
to  be  his  friends ;  but  even  his  genial  soul 
could  not  warm  them  toward  each  other. 
Seward  and  Chase  were  antagonistic. 
Stanton  and  Welles  were  not  in  accord. 
Cameron,  Lincoln's  first  Secretary  of  War, 
proved  insubordinate.  Seward  meddled 
with  the  Navy  and  the  Law,  according  to 
the  heads  of  those  Departments.  Bates 
had  little  patience  with  Stanton.  Welles 
thought  Chase's  financial  policy  all  wrong. 
Blair  seemed  to  all  of  them  aggressively 
mindful  of  family  interests.  And  each  be- 
gan by  believing  it  his  moral  duty  to  help 
234 


THOSE    IN    AUTHORITY 

neutralize  the  great  national  blunder  which 
had  elected  Lincoln  by  guiding  and  direct- 
ing him  with  all  the  brains  at  his  command. 

It  could  not  be  called  a  harmonious  com- 
pany, yet  the  earnest  patriotism  in  the 
heart  of  each,  and  Lincoln's  elastic  good 
nature,  held  them  together  fairly  well. 
Newspapers  printed  sensational  accounts 
of  quarrels,  and  rumors  of  wholesale  cab- 
inet changes ;  but  they  continued  to  work 
together  for  the  country's  good,  and 
changes,  when  they  occurred,  were  neither 
wholesale  nor  sensational. 

Lincoln  dominated  them  from  the  first, 
though  it  was  long  before  they  found  it  out. 
As  late  as  January,  1862,  Attorney-Gen- 
eral Bates  wrote  in  his  diary: 

"  There  is  no  quarrel  among  us,  but  an 
absolute  want  of  continuity  of  intelligence, 
purpose  and  action.  In  truth,  it  is  not  an 
administration,  but  the  separate  and  dis- 
jointed action  of  seven  independent  offi- 
cers, each  one  ignorant  of  what  his  col- 
235 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

leagues  are  doing.  .  .  .  The  President  is 
an  excellent  man,  and  in  the  main  wise,  but 
he  lacks  will  and  purpose,  and  I  greatly 
fear  he  has  not  the  power  to  command." 

Yet  even  before  they  were  actually  his 
advisers  he  began  his  sway.  Two  days 
before  the  inauguration,  Seward,  suspect- 
ing an  undue  leaning  toward  the  more  rad- 
ical element  in  the  party,  attempted  to 
withdraw.  Lincoln  waited  until  the  in- 
augural procession  was  forming  in  the 
street,  and  then  sent  him  a  short  note,  re- 
fusing to  release  him,  remarking  as  he 
handed  it  to  his  private  secretary  to  be 
copied : 

"  I  cannot  afford  to  let  Seward  take  the 
first  trick." 

In  Lincoln's  mind  their  mutual  relations 
were  clear.  The  cabinet  was  not  a  re- 
gency, but  a  board  of  advisers.  Questions 
of  administration  he  settled  with  each  de- 
partment separately.  Questions  of  policy 
he  discussed  with  his  cabinet ;  but  he  rarely 
236 


THOSE    IN    AUTHORITY 

asked  their  vote;  and  on  several  occasions 
his  final  decision  was  against  their  almost 
unanimous  judgment.  Yet  he  was  patient 
to  hear  advice,  and  candid  to  admit  the 
force  of  argument.  When  he  had  to  give 
a  decision  adverse  to  the  majority,  he  gave 
it,  not  with  the  pride  of  authority,  but  as 
though  constrained  by  public  duty. 

Lincoln's  modification  of  Seward's  de- 
spatches at  the  time  of  the  Trent  affair, 
and  his  magnanimous  handling  of  that  gen- 
tleman when  in  a  moment  of  madness  Sew- 
ard  intimated  that  Lincoln  was  a  failure 
as  President,  offered  to  do  his  thinking  for 
him,  and  proposed  to  end  the  budding  re- 
bellion by  bringing  on  war  with  most  of 
the  military  powers  of  Europe,  is  an  old 
story.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  frigid 
note  with  which  Washington  would  have 
dismissed  such  a  minister,  or  the  impetuos- 
ity with  which  Jackson  would  have  thun- 
dered him  out  of  his  cabinet.  Lincoln 
answered  in  a  few  quiet  words,  entirely  de- 
237 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

void  of  passion,  pointing  out  that  it  was  for 
him  and  no  one  else  to  make  final  decisions, 
adding,  "  I  wish,  and  suppose  I  am  en- 
titled to  have,  the  advice  of  all  my  cabinet." 
Seward  was  great  enough  to  comprehend 
his  generosity,  and  so  far  as  is  known,  the 
matter  was  never  alluded  to  between  them. 

When  Secretary  Cameron  sent  out  a  re- 
port in  favor  of  arming  negroes  for  mili- 
tary service,  which  he  knew  was  at  that 
time  contrary  to  Lincoln's  policy,  Lincoln 
showed  no  anger.  He  merely  recalled  the 
advance  copies  and  asked  him  to  modify 
the  order.  For  a  time  the  incident  seemed 
forgotten,  but  one  day  Cameron  was  made 
Minister  to  Russia,  and  there  was  a  new 
Secretary  of  War. 

It  is  said  that  on  the  death  of  Cardinal 
Mazarin  Louis  XIV  called  his  cabinet 
together  and  told  them  that  for  the  future 
he  intended  to  be  his  own  prime  minister. 
Lincoln  made  no  unnecessary  statements, 
but  gradually  it  dawned  upon  the  cabinet 
238 


THOSE    IN    AUTHORITY 

that  he  was  master.  Seward  was  the  first 
to  find  it  out.  "  There  is  but  one  vote  in 
the  cabinet,  and  that  is  cast  by  the  Presi- 
dent," he  wrote  some  weeks  after  his  unbe- 
lievable Memorandum  of  April  1,  1861. 

This  Westerner  whom  they  had  thought 
to  rule  had  a  kingly  way  of  his  own.  For 
all  his  simple  manners  he  gave  orders  like 
one  born  to  power.  "  You  will  hear  all 
they  may  choose  to  say,  and  report  it  to 
me.  You  will  not  assume  to  definitely  con- 
summate anything,"  he  instructed  Seward 
when  the  latter  went  to  meet  the  commis- 
sioners of  the  Confederacy  at  Hampton 
Roads.  And  when  the  war  was  nearing 
its  close  he  sent  word  to  Grant :  "  You  are 
not  to  decide,  discuss,  or  confer  upon  any 
political  question.  Such  questions  the 
President  holds  in  his  own  hands,  and  will 
submit  them  to  no  military  conferences  or 
conventions.  Meanwhile  you  are  to  press 
to  the  utmost  your  military  advantages." 

When  he  read  his  cabinet  the  prelimi- 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

nary  Proclamation  of  Emancipation,  he 
told  them  flatly  that  he  had  resolved  upon 
the  step,  and  had  not  called  them  together 
to  ask  their  advice. 

No  descendant  of  a  hundred  kings  could 
be  more  sure  of  his  right  to  command. 
Even  Louis  could  not  have  been  more  dic- 
tatorial or  emphatic ;  but  his  methods  were 
characteristically  his  own. 

In  1864  when  intrigues  within  the  cabi- 
net reached  a  pitch  that  he  could  no  longer 
ignore,  he  read  his  assembled  advisers  the 
following  impressive  little  lecture : 

"  I  must  myself  be  the  judge  how  long 
to  retain  in,  and  when  to  remove  any  of 
you  from,  his  position.  It  would  greatly 
pain  me  to  discover  any  of  you  endeavor- 
ing to  procure  another's  removal,  or  in  any 
way  to  prejudice  him  before  the  public. 
Such  endeavor  would  be  a  wrong  to  me; 
and  much  worse,  a  wrong  to  the  country. 
My  wish  is  that  on  this  subject,  no  remark 
be  made,  nor  question  asked,  by  any  of 
240 


•e 

cr 

H 
n 


8? 

cr 


o 

EC 


E 
cr 


• 8 


3 
fe 

**• 

O 

=5 


THOSE    IN    AUTHORITY 

you,  here  or  elsewhere,  now  or  hereafter." 
At  another  time  an  intrigue  set  on 
foot  by  some  friends  of  Chase,  resulted  in 
such  criticism  of  Seward  by  Republican 
senators  that  Seward  sent  the  President 
his  resignation.  Lincoln  called  the  cen- 
sorious senators,  and  all  of  the  cabinet,  ex- 
cept Seward,  to  a  meeting  at  the  White 
House,  neither  side  knowing  that  the  other 
was  to  be  present.  In  the  unexpected 
face-to-face  council  a  very  warm  discussion 
took  place,  and  Chase  found  himself,  with 
the  rest  of  the  cabinet,  defending  Seward. 
To  save  his  consistency  he  next  day 
brought  the  President  his  own  resignation, 
which  was  accepted  with  unflattering  alac- 
rity. 

A  moment  later  a  friend  entering  the 
room  found  Mr.  Lincoln  alone,  regarding 
the  paper  with  an  indescribably  whimsical 
expression. 

"  Now  I  can  ride,"  he  said.     "  I  have  a 
pumpkin  in  each  end  of  my  bag ; "  and 
16  241 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

forthwith  sat  down  and  wrote  identical 
notes  to  Seward  and  Chase,  asking  them 
to  withdraw  their  resignations. 

Lincoln  was  well  satisfied  with  this  day's 
work,  by  which  he  had  made  the  critics 
thrash  out  their  differences  in  his  presence, 
and  had  saved  the  services  of  both  his  able 
ministers  to  the  country.  "  I  do  not  see 
how  it  could  have  been  done  better,"  he 
said.  "  I  am  sure  it  was  right.  If  I  had 
yielded  to  that  storm  and  dismissed  Seward 
the  thing  would  all  have  slumped  over  one 
way,  and  we  should  have  been  left  with  a 
scanty  handful  of  supporters.  When 
Chase  sent  in  his  resignation  I  saw  the 
game  was  in  my  own  hands,  and  I  put  it 
through." 

The  cabinet  sessions  were  absolutely  in- 
formal. Regular  meetings  were  held  at 
noon  on  Tuesdays  and  Fridays.  When 
special  meetings  were  necessary  the  Presi- 
dent or  Secretary  of  State  called  the  mem- 
bers together.  There  was  a  long  table  in 
242 


THOSE    IN    AUTHORITY 

the  cabinet  room,  but  it  was  not  used  as  a 
council  board.  The  President  generally 
stood  up  and  walked  about.  The  others 
came  in  and  took  their  seats  according  to 
convenience,  staying  through  the  session, 
or  stating  their  business  and  departing,  as 
pressure  of  work  demanded.  Sometimes 
the  meeting  was  opened  by  a  remark  or  an 
anecdote  by  the  President;  oftener  by  the 
relation  of  some  official  or  personal  hap- 
pening to  one  of  his  advisers. 

The  many  stories  of  strained  relations 
between  Lincoln  and  Stanton  are  capable 
of  a  gentler  interpretation  than  is  usually 
given  them.  Stanton  was  undoubtedly 
prejudiced  against  Lincoln  in  the  begin- 
ning. This  was  perhaps  the  result  of  an 
unquiet  conscience,  since  he  had  treated 
Mr.  Lincoln  with  scant  courtesy  in  the 
McCormick  Reaper  case  some  years 
before. 

Simon  Cameron  told  my  father  that 
when  he  was  made  Minister  to  Russia  Lin- 
243 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

coin  asked  whom  he  wished  for  his  succes- 
sor in  the  War  Department.  He  answered, 
"  Stanton." 

"  Well,"    said    Lincoln,    "  go    and    ask 
Stanton  whether  he  will  take  it." 

On  his  way  Mr.  Cameron  met  Secre- 
tary Chase,  and  told  his  errand.  Chase, 
who  had  a  weakness  for  feeling  that  he  was 
pulling  the  strings  and  making  the  pup- 
pets dance,  said,  "  Don't  go  to  Stanton's 
office.  Come  with  me  to  my  office,  and 
send  for  Stanton  to  come  there,  and  we 
will  talk  it  over  together."  They  did  so, 
and  Stanton  agreed  to  accept  the  post, 
possibly  in  the  same  spirit  of  hostile  pa- 
triotism with  which  he  had  entered  on  his 
duties  under  Buchanan.  But  there  was  a 
rugged  honesty  in  him  which  could  not  fail 
to  respond  to  Lincoln's  qualities.  He  was 
as  impetuous  and  explosive  as  the  Presi- 
dent was  slow  to  anger ;  but  his  bluster  was 
a  habit  of  speech  quite  as  much  as  a  state 
of  mind,  and  Lincoln  bore  no  malice. 
244 


THOSE    IN    AUTHORITY 

"  Did  Stan  ton  say  I  was  a  d — d  fool?  " 
Lincoln  asked  when  Mr.  Love  joy  came  in 
bewildered  rage  to  report  an  interview  the 
President  had  authorized  him  to  hold  with 
his  Secretary  of  War. 

"He  did,  sir!" 

The  President  bent  his  head,  then  looked 
up  with  his  winning  smile  and  remarked, 
"  If  Stanton  says  I  am  a  d — d  fool,  I  must 
be  one,  for  he  is  nearly  always  right.  I 
will  slip  over  and  see  him."  The  point  of 
this  and  similar  stories  is  that  Lincoln 
kept  his  temper,  refused  to  air  family  dif- 
ferences, official  or  personal,  in  public, 
and  that  after  "  slipping  over  to  see  him," 
the  matter  was  arranged. 

"  This  woman,  dear  Stanton,  is  a  little 
smarter  than  she  looks  to  be  " —  that  mes- 
sage and  even  his  note  about  Julius 
Caesar's  hair,  are  not  the  kind  a  man  sends 
where  relations  are  seriously  strained. 

Several  members  of  the  cabinet  were  af- 
flicted with  undue  seriousness.  When  the 
245 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

President  endorsed  a  paper,  "  Referred  to 
Mars  and  Neptune,"  the  heads  of  the  War 
and  Navy  Departments  looked  askance. 
When  they  heard  him  laugh  only  a 
moment  before  turning  to  consider  the 
weighty  matter  of  the  Emancipation  Proc- 
lamation, they  felt  that  something  was 
radically  wrong.  They  could  scarcely 
condone  Lincoln's  joking;  and  when  Stan- 
ton  tried  to  be  mildly  funny  they  instantly 
scented  a  scandal.  Secretary  Welles  con- 
fided to  his  diary :  "  The  President  still 
remains  with  the  army  .  .  .  Stanton  .  .  . 
remarked  that  it  was  quite  pleasant  to 
have  the  President  away.  That  he 
(Stanton)  was  much  less  annoyed. 
Neither  Seward  nor  myself  responded." 

Lincoln's  remark  that  he  "  had  n't  much 
influence  with  this  administration,"  and 
that  he  was  "  only  the  lead-horse  who 
must  n't  kick  over  the  traces,"  was  his 
way  of  saying  that  if  he  delegated  powers 
and  duties  to  his  cabinet  ministers,  it  was 
246 


THOSE    IN    AUTHORITY 

only  fair  to  refrain  from  interfering  while 
they  carried  them  out.  "  It  is  a  good 
thing  for  individuals  that  there  is  a  Gov- 
ernment to  shove  over  their  acts  upon. 
No  man's  shoulders  are  broad  enough  to 
bear  what  must  be,"  he  said ;  and  to  critics 
of  the  administration  he  would  answer: 

"  Suppose  all  you  owned  was  in  gold, 
and  the  gold  had  been  put  into  the  hands 
of  Blondin  to  carry  across  the  Niagara 
River  on  a  rope  —  would  you  shake  the 
rope  and  keep  shouting  contradictory  ad- 
vice; or  would  you  hold  your  breath  and 
your  tongue,  and  keep  hands  off  until  he 
was  safely  over?  The  Government  is 
carrying  an  immense  load  and  doing  the 
best  it  can.  Don't  badger  us.  We  '11  get 
you  safe  across." 

He  never  lost  his  sense  of  proportion. 
He  used  to  tell  a  story  of  a  pilot  on  a 
Western  river,  who  was  using  every  bit  of 
his  skill  and  vigilance  to  keep  the  boat  in 
the  narrow  channel,  when  he  felt  a  tug  at 
247 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

his  coat,  and  heard  a  boy  cry,  "  Say,  Mr. 
Captain,  say !  I  wish  you  'd  stop  your 
boat  a  minute,  I  've  lost  my  apple  over- 
board." And  he  had  another  story  about 
a  steamboat  with  a  "  five-foot  boiler  and  a 
seven-foot  whistle "  which  had  to  stop 
stock-still  every  time  the  engineer  blew  a 
blast. 

Criticism  which  took  no  more  account  of 
values  worried  him  little.  "  I  '11  do  the, 
very  best  I  can,"  he  said  —  "  the  very  best 
I  know  how.  And  I  mean  to  keep  doing  so 
till  the  end.  If  the  end  brings  me  out  all 
right  what  is  said  against  me  won't  amount 
to  anything.  If  the  end  brings  me  out 
wrong,  ten  angels  swearing  I  was  right 
would  make  no  difference." 

Senators  seemed  to  consider  themselves 
specially  privileged  in  the  line  of  criticism. 

"  I  fear  I  have  made  Senator  Wade  my 
enemy  for  life,"  he  said  ruefully  one  day. 
"  He  was  here  just  now,  urging  me  to  dis- 
miss Grant,  and  in  response  to  something 
248 


THOSE    IN    AUTHORITY 

he  said  I  answered,  '  Senator,  that  reminds 
me  of  a  story.'  He  said  in  a  petulant  way, 
'  It  is  with  you  all  story,  story !  You  are 
letting  this  country  go  to  hell  with  your 
stories,  sir !  You  are  not  more  than  a  mile 
away  from  it  this  minute.'  ' 

"  What  did  you  answer?  " 

"  I  asked  good-naturedly  if  that  was 
not  just  about  the  distance  from  here  to 
the  Senate  Chamber.  He  was  very  angry, 
grabbed  up  his  hat  and  went  off." 

It  is  said  that  the  aptness  of  the  retort 
worked  its  way  through  the  senator's  anger 
before  he  reached  that  place  "  a  mile 
away,"  and  that  he  turned  back  to  apolo- 
gize. The  President's  callers  were  not 
always  so  reasonable;  and  he  was  sin- 
cerely distressed  if  any  one  left  him  in  ill 
humor. 

With  Senator  Sumner  his  relations  were 

outwardly  most  cordial,  though  he  was  not 

insensible  to  the  spirit  of  criticism  which 

underlay     the     smiling     intercourse.     "  I 

249 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

have  never  had  much  to  do  with  bishops," 
he  said  once,  "  but,  do  you  know  —  Sum- 
ner  is  my  idea  of  a  bishop." 

Sumner  was  troubled  by  what  he  called 
"  the  slow  working  of  Lincoln's  mind  " ; 
yet  he  was  not  always  quick  to  catch  the 
President's  meaning.  Hamilton  Fish  told 
my  father  about  calling  upon  the  President 
in  Sumner's  company  when  curiosity  was 
rife  over  the  destination  of  General  Burn- 
side's  expedition  against  Roanoke  Island. 
Mr.  Sumner  began  asking  questions. 

"  Well,"  said  the  President,  "  I  am  not 
a  military  man,  and  of  course  I  cannot  tell 
about  these  matters  —  and  indeed,  if  I  did 
know,  the  interests  of  the  public  service 
require  that  I  should  not  divulge  them. 
But,"  he  added,  rising  and  sweeping  his 
long  hand  over  a  map  of  the  North  Caro- 
lina coast  which  hung  in  a  corner,  "  now 
see  here.  Here  are  a  large  number  of  in- 
lets, and  I  should  think  a  fleet  might  per- 
haps get  in  there  somewhere.  And  if  they 
250 


THOSE    IN    AUTHORITY 

were  to  get  in  there,  don't  you  think  our 
boys  would  be  likely  to  cut  up  some  flip- 
flaps?  I  think  they  would." 

Mr.  Fish  turned  the  conversation.  As 
they  left  the  White  House  Sumner  ex- 
pressed impatience  at  the  President's  reti- 
cence. "  Why,"  said  his  companion. 
"  He  told  you  where  Burnside  was  going ! 
He  wanted  to  satisfy  your  curiosity,  but  of 
course  he  could  not  make  an  official  decla- 
ration. I  think  you  ought  to  be  well 
pleased  that  he  was  so  frank." 

"  Well,  Governor,  who  has  been  abusing 
me  in  the  Senate  to-day?  "  Lincoln  asked 
Senator  Morrill  as  the  latter  came  into  his 
office.  The  Senator  protested. 

"  Mr.  President,  I  hope  none  of  us  abuse 
you  knowingly  and  wilfully." 

"  Oh,  well,"  he  said,  "  I  don't  mean  that. 
Personally  you  are  all  very  kind  —  but  I 
know  we  do  not  all  agree  as  to  what  this 
administration  should  do  and  how  it  ought 
to  be  done.  ...  I  do  not  know  but  that 
251 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

God  has  created  some  one  man  great 
enough  to  comprehend  the  whole  of  this 
stupendous  crisis  from  beginning  to  end, 
and  endowed  him  with  sufficient  wisdom  to 
manage  and  direct  it.  I  confess  I  do  not 
fully  understand  and  foresee  it  all.  But  I 
am  placed  here  where  I  am  obliged  to  the 
best  of  my  poor  ability  to  deal  with  it. 
And  that  being  the  case,  I  can  only  go 
just  as  fast  as  I  can  see  how  to  go." 

"  That,"  continued  Mr.  Morrill,  "  was 
the  way  he  saw  this  thing  —  as  a  stupen- 
dous movement,  which  he  watched  and  upon 
which  he  acted  as  he  might  best  do  when 
in  his  judgment  the  opportune  moment 
came.  .  .  .  He  saw  that  in  his  dealings 
with  it  he  must  be  backed  by  immense 
forces ;  and  to  this  end  it  was  his  policy  to 
hold  the  nation  true  to  the  general  aim. 
.  .  .  He  moderated,  guided,  controlled,  or 
pushed  ahead  as  he  saw  his  opportunity. 
He  was  the  great  balance-wheel  which  held 
the  ship  true  to  her  course." 
252 


THOSE    IN    AUTHORITY 

It  required  all  his  wisdom,  all  his  firm- 
ness, all  his  tact.  He  must  maintain  prin- 
ciples, and  not  make  enemies.  A  high  of- 
ficial came  to  him  in  a  towering  rage,  but 
went  away  perfectly  satisfied.  "  I  sup- 
pose you  had  to  make  large  concessions  ?  " 
the  President  was  asked.  "  Oh,  no,"  was 
the  answer.  "  I  did  not  concede  anything. 
You  have  heard  how  the  Illinois  farmer 
disposed  of  the  log  that  was  too  wet  to 
burn,  too  big  to  haul  away,  and  too  knotty 
to  split?  He  plowed  around  it.  Well, 
that  is  the  way  I  got  rid  of  Governor 
Blank.  I  plowed  around  him.  But  it 
took  three  mortal  hours ;  and  I  was  afraid 
every  minute  that  he  would  find  me  out !  " 

Lincoln's  loyalty  and  fairness  made  him 
keep  unsuccessful  generals  in  command 
long  after  the  patience  of  impatient  people 
was  exhausted.  "  I  think  Grant  has 
hardly  a  friend  left,  except  myself,"  he  re- 
marked, before  the  fall  of  Vicksburg  justi- 
fied the  waiting.  After  Vicksburg  fell  the 
253 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

President  sent  Grant  a  letter  which  showed 
that  he  too  had  had  his  moments  of  ques- 
tioning —  and  also  how  heartily  and  grace- 
fully he  could  say,  "  You  were  right  and  I 
was  wrong." 

"  My  dear  General :  I  do  not  remem- 
ber that  you  and  I  ever  met  personally.  I 
write  this  now  as  a  grateful  acknowledg- 
ment for  the  almost  inestimable  service  you 
have  done  the  country.  I  wish  to  say  a 
word  further " ;  then,  summing  up  the 
various  plans  that  the  general  had  tried  in 
the  course  of  his  siege,  including  the  last 
one  which  ended  in  victory,  he  continued, 
"  When  you  got  below  and  took  Port  Gib- 
son, Grand  Gulf,  and  vicinity,  I  thought 
you  should  go  down  the  river  and  join 
General  Banks,  and  when  you  turned  north- 
ward, east  of  the  Big  Black,  I  feared  it  was 
a  mistake.  I  now  wish  to  make  the  per- 
sonal acknowledgment  that  you  were  right 
and  I  was  wrong." 

The  President  knew  that  a  change  in 
254 


THOSE    IN    AUTHORITY 

commanders  always  involved  more  than  the 
mere  risk  of  "  swapping  horses  while  cross- 
ing a  stream."  There  was  the  troublesome 
question  of  finding  a  better  horse.  Sena- 
tor Wade,  who  was  not  the  most  patient 
of  men,  urged  him  to  supplant  McClellan. 

"  Well,"  said  the  President,  "  put  your- 
self in  my  place  for  a  moment.  If  I 
relieve  McClellan  whom  shall  I  put  in  com- 
mand? Who,  of  all  the  men,  is  to  super- 
sede him  ?  " 

"  Why,"  said  Wade,  "  anybody." 

"  Wade,"  replied  Mr.  Lincoln,  with 
weary  resignation,  "  anybody  will  do  for 
you,  but  not  for  me.  I  must  have  some- 
body." 

He  realized  that  more  than  mere  fighting 
qualities  had  to  be  borne  in  mind.  The 
multifarious  details  of  keeping  an  army 
in  good  physical  and  moral  condition  — 
from  the  prompt  delivery  of  rations  to 
good  regimental  music  —  and  the  fact 
that  the  lack  of  one  single  small  item,  like 
255 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

horse-shoe  nails,  might  cripple  a  whole 
corps  and  lose  a  battle,  was  summed  up 
in  his  quaint  way,  when,  discussing  the 
qualities  of  various  generals  in  the  field, 
he  said, 

"  Now  there  is  Joe  Hooker.  He  can 
fight.  I  think  that  is  pretty  well  estab- 
lished —  but  whether  he  can  *  keep  tav- 
ern '  for  a  large  army  is  not  so  sure." 

The  heart-sickening  list  of  military  rep- 
utations that  began  in  promise  and  ended 
in  defeat,  dragged  on,  saddening  and 
wearying  him.  His  inflexible  sense  of  jus- 
tice left  him  not  even  the  satisfaction  of 
wrath,  for  he  knew  that  none  of  these  men 
failed  willingly. 


256 


XIII 

DAILY  BECEPTIONS  OF  THE  PLAIN  PEOPLE 

SECRETARY     WELLES     kept     an 
interesting    and    voluminous     diary. 
In  it  he  wrote : 

It  is  an  infirmity  of  the  President  that 
he  permits  the  little  newsmongers  to  come 
around  him  and  be  intimate;  and  in  this  he 
is  encouraged  by  Seward,  who  does  the  same, 
and  even  courts  the  corrupt  and  the  vicious, 
which  the  President  does  not.  He  has  great 
inquisitiveness.  Likes  to  hear  all  the  politi- 
cal gossip  as  much  as  Seward.  But  the  Presi- 
dent is  honest,  sincere,  and  confiding.  .  .  . 

Fully  three-quarters  of  Lincoln's  time 
was  indeed  given  up  to  seeing  people,  and 
the   "  little   newsmongers "   played   a   not 
'7  257 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

unimportant  part  in  his  success.  He  had 
no  time  for  reading  newspapers.  He  soon 
gave  up  all  attempts  to  do  so;  yet  it  was 
imperative  that  he  should  know  the  drift 
of  thought  and  feeling  all  over  the  coun- 
try. His  private  secretaries,  bringing  him 
their  daily  digest  of  news,  marveled  to  find 
him  already  so  well  informed.  The  secret 
lay  in  these  interminable  interviews.  With 
prominent  men  from  all  sections  coming 
to  receive  or  impart  information,  and  the 
"  plain  people,"  as  he  liked  to  call  them, 
coming  to  him  on  all  sorts  of  errands,  there 
was  hardly  a  subject  of  public  interest  not 
touched  upon  and  discussed.  His  visitors 
supplied  all  he  could  have  acquired  by 
reading,  and  in  addition  the  element  of 
interest  or  prejudice  which  each  uncon- 
sciously put  into  his  narrative.  The  Pres- 
ident used  to  call  these  interviews  his  pub- 
lic opinion  baths ;  and  he  was  much  better 
equipped  for  the  task  of  governing,  be- 
cause he  understood,  in  part  at  least,  the 
258 


DAILY    RECEPTIONS 

foibles  and  prejudices  of  the  different  lo- 
calities. He  had  not  left  his  skill  in  prac- 
tical politics  behind  him  in  Illinois,  and  he 
knew  that  upon  the  cooperation  of  all  these 
people  he  must  finally  rely. 

His  friends  begged  him  to  save  himself 
the  fatigue  of  seeing  the  throngs  who  came 
on  insignificant  errands.  They  reminded 
him  that  nine  out  of  ten  had  some  favor 
to  ask,  and  that  nine-tenths  of  these  he 
could  not  grant. 

"  They  do  not  want  much,"  he  answered, 
"  and  they  get  very  little.  Each  one  con- 
siders his  business  of  great  importance, 
and  I  must  gratify  them.  I  know  how  I 
would  feel  in  their  place."  At  noon,  on 
days  when  the  cabinet  was  not  in  session, 
the  doors  were  thrown  open,  and  the  public 
might  enter. 

There  was  of  course  some  danger  in  this. 

Insane  people  and  criminals  might,  indeed 

sometimes  did,  enter  with  the  rest.     But 

the  military  guard,  the  ushers,  and  Lin- 

259 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

coin's  secretaries  were  all  on  the  alert  to 
detect  them,  and  acquired  great  skill  in 
handling  undesirable  visitors. 

"  Lunatics  and  visionaries  are  here  so 
frequently  that  they  cease  to  be  strange 
phenomena,"  my  father  wrote.  "  I  find 
the  best  way  is  to  discuss  and  decide  their 
projects  as  deliberately  as  any  other  mat- 
ter of  business." 

The  President,  having  read  deeply  in 
the  book  of  human  nature,  was  himself 
skilled  in  detecting  hidden  signs  of  false- 
hood and  deceit.  "  They  are  a  swindle," 
the  youthful  John  Hay  declared,  as  he 
announced  a  delegation  from  the  far 
South.  "  Let  them  in,  they  will  not  swin- 
dle me,"  quoth  the  President. 

Men  of  all  sorts  with  projects  of  all 
kinds,  legitimate  or  otherwise,  came  to  ask 
for  official  sanction.  These  were  apt  to 
lag  behind,  hoping  for  a  word  alone  with 
the  President.  "  Well,  my  friend,  what 
can  I  do  for  you  ?  "  he  would  ask  in  dis- 
260 


DAILY    RECEPTIONS 

concertingly  prompt  and  public  fashion. 
But  he  arrogated  to  himself  no  right  of 
criticism  or  censure  because  he  was  Presi- 
dent, treating  all  as  though  the  burden 
of  proving  dishonesty  rested  upon  the 
Government. 

Particularly  welcome  were  the  occa- 
sional visits  of  stalwart  mountaineers  from 
East  Tennessee,  whom  the  President 
greeted  like  younger  brothers.  "  He  is 
one  of  them,  really,"  wrote  John  Hay ;  "  I 
never  saw  him  more  at  his  ease  than  he  is 
with  these  first-rate  patriots  of  the  bor- 
der." 

Sometimes  a  group  of  Indians  from  the 
far  West  filled  the  room  with  gaudy  color, 
and  Lincoln  would  air  his  two  or  three  In- 
dian words,  to  their  stolid  amusement. 
Oftener  the  apartment  was  somber  with 
the  mourning  garments  of  women  come  to 
plead  for  husbands  or  fathers  in  trouble, 
or  to  ask  permission  to  pass  south  through 
the  military  lines. 

261 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

More  of  the  President's  visitors  were  sad 
than  happy.  Some  of  them  came  on  er- 
rands that  were  ridiculous  as  well  as  trivial. 
Once  a  voluble  landlady  deluged  him  with 
insistence  that  he  hold  up  the  pay  of  her 
treasury-clerk  lodger  until  his  account  was 
settled. 

Though  so  busy  he  apparently  had  leis- 
ure for  all,  bending  a  care-lined  benignant 
face  to  listen,  grave,  courteous,  sympa- 
thetic; breaking  at  times  into  his  sudden 
infectious  laugh,  referring  one  to  this  bu- 
reau and  another  to  that  official,  to  whom 
they  should  have  carried  their  requests  in 
the  first  place;  or  scribbling  a  few  words 
on  a  card  which  opened  vistas  of  quite 
breathless  happiness. 

It  pained  him  to  say  "  No,"  and  it  was 
his  impulse  to  keep  the  conversation  on  a 
semi-humorous  footing  where  the  "  No," 
if  it  must  be  said,  would  hurt  as  little  as 
possible.  To  this  end  he  drew  on  his  fund 
of  anecdotes,  until  almost  every  account 
262 


DAILY    RECEPTIONS 

of  an  interview  at  the  White  House  tells  of 
the  President's  smile,  and  his  sympathy, 
and  how  he  told  a  funny  story. 

Sometimes  he  essayed  the  dangerous  ex- 
periment of  answering  a  fool  according  to 
his  folly.  A  gentleman  came  to  him  in 
behalf  of  a  private  soldier  who  had 
knocked  down  his  captain.  "  I  tell  you 
what  I  will  do.  You  go  up  to  the  Capitol, 
and  get  Congress  to  pass  a  law  making  it 
legal  for  a  private  to  knock  down  his  cap- 
tain, and  I  '11  pardon  your  man  with  pleas- 
ure," he  said  with  such  waggish  earnest- 
ness, and  such  evident  desire  to  please, 
that  both  burst  out  laughing,  and  the  mat- 
ter was  dropped. 

He  told  his  cabinet  that  he  found  cer- 
tain questions  very  embarrassing.  He  re- 
minded himself  of  a  man  in  Illinois  who 
was  so  annoyed  by  a  pressing^  creditor  that 
he  feigned  insanity  whenever  the  creditor 
broached  the  subject.  "  I,"  said  the  Pres- 
ident, "  on  more  than  one  occasion  in  this 
263 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

room,  have  been  compelled  to  appear  very 
mad." 

The  few  people  who  had  no  requests  to 
make,  usually  came  to  give  advice.  Min- 
isters seemed  to  feel  themselves  as  privi- 
leged as  Senators  in  this  regard.  Mr.  Car- 
penter tells  of  a  clergyman  who  asked  for 
an  interview.  The  President  assumed  an 
air  of  patient  waiting.  There  was  a  mo- 
ment's silence.  "  I  am  now  ready  to  hear 
what  you  have  to  say,"  he  prompted,  as 
the  silence  continued.  The  visitor  hastily 
disclaimed  having  anything  particular  to 
say.  He  had  only  come  to  pay  his  re- 
spects. "  My  dear  sir ! "  the  other  cried, 
his  face  lighting  up,  "  I  am  delighted  to 
see  you.  I  thought  you  had  come  to 
preach  to  me !  " 

Singly  or  in  delegations  they  came  for 
that  purpose  —  to  show  him  his  duty  in 
regard  to  emancipation,  or  some  other 
matter  about  which  he  was  not  yet  ready 
to  declare  his  policy.  While  courteous,  he 
264 


DAILY    RECEPTIONS 

absolutely  refused  to  be  hurried  into  a  dec- 
laration. "  He  will  not  be  bullied,  even 
by  his  friends,"  one  of  his  secretaries 
wrote. 

Others,  singly,  or  in  delegations,  came  to 
pray  with  him.  Respecting  their  motive, 
and  himself  deeply  religious,  he  received 
them  with  unfailing  courtesy.  A  Metho- 
dist exhortation,  or  a  Quaker  prayer  meet- 
ing, might  seem  inconvenient,  even  time 
consuming,  in  the  midst  of  his  busy  morn- 
ing, but  this  "  Christian  without  a  creed  " 
not  only  reverenced  the  power  to  whom  the 
petition  was  addressed ;  he  was  grateful  for 
the  human  bond  it  helped  to  strengthen. 
Sometimes,  however,  he  was  moved  to  ask 
questions  hard  to  meet.  To  one  person 
who  claimed  to  bring  him  a  direct  com- 
mand from  the  Almighty,  he  replied: 

"  I  hope  it  will  not  be  irreverent  for  me 

to   say   that   if  it   is   probable   that   God 

would  reveal  his  will  to  others  on  a  point 

so  connected  with  my  duty,   it  might  be 

265 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

supposed  He  would  reveal  it  directly  to 
me." 

He  had  a  most  disconcerting  way  of 
pricking  bubbles  with  the  point  of  his 
logic.  A  committee  of  rich  New  Yorkers 
hurried  to  Washington  when  the  Confeder- 
ate ironclad  Merrimac  was  striking  terror 
into  hearts  along  the  Atlantic  coast,  and 
demanded  a  gun-boat  for  the  protection  of 
New  York  harbor.  "  Gentlemen,"  he  an- 
swered, "  the  credit  of  the  Government  is 
at  a  very  low  ebb.  It  is  impossible  under 
present  conditions  to  do  what  you  ask. 
But  it  seems  to  me,  that  if  I  were  half  as 
rich  as  you  are  reputed  to  be,  and  half  as 
badly  scared  as  you  appear  to  be,  I  would 
build  a  gun-boat  and  present  it  to  the 
Government." 

When,  at  long  intervals,  his  patience 
gave  way,  and  he  blazed  forth  in  righteous 
wrath,  men  quailed  before  him.  Editor 
Medill  of  the  Chicago  Tribune  told  of  a 
time  in  1864  when  a  call  for  extra  troops 
266 


DAILY    RECEPTIONS 

drove  Chicago  to  the  verge  of  revolt.  Her 
quota  was  6000  men.  She  sent  a  delega- 
tion to  ask  for  a  new  enrollment,  which 
Stanton  refused.  Lincoln  consented  to  go 
with  the  delegation  to  Stanton's  office  and 
hear  both  sides.  "  I  shall  never  forget," 
said  Mr.  Medill,  "  how  after  sitting  in  si- 
lence for  some  time,  he  suddenly  lifted 
his  head  and  turned  on  us  a  black  and 
frowning  face. 

"  '  Gentlemen,'  he  said,  in  a  voice  full 
of  bitterness,  '  after  Boston,  Chicago  has 
been  the  chief  instrument  in  bringing 
this  war  on  the  country.  The  Northwest 
has  opposed  the  South  as  the  Northeast 
has  opposed  the  South.  It  is  you  who 
are  largely  responsible  for  making  blood 
flow  as  it  has.  You  called  for  war  until 
we  had  it.  You  called  for  emancipation, 
and  I  have  given  it  to  you.  Whatever  you 
have  asked  for  you  have  had.  Now  you 
come  here  begging  to  be  let  off  from  the 
call  for  men  which  I  have  made  to  carry  on 
267 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

the  war  you  have  demanded.  You  ought 
to  be  ashamed  of  yourselves.  I  have  a 
right  to  expect  better  things  of  you.  And 
you,  Medill,  you  are  acting  like  a  coward. 
You  and  your  Tribune  have  had  more  in- 
fluence than  any  paper  in  the  Northwest 
in  making  this  war.  You  can  influence 
great  masses,  and  yet  you  cry  to  be  spared 
at  a  moment  when  your  cause  is  suffering. 
Go  home  and  send  us  those  men! ' 

"  I  could  n't  say  anything.  It  was  the 
first  time  I  was  ever  whipped,  and  I  did  n't 
have  an  answer.  We  all  got  up  and  went 
out,  and  when  the  door  closed,  one  of  my 
colleagues  said,  '  Well,  gentlemen,  the  Old 
Man  is  right.  We  ought  to  be  ashamed  of 
ourselves.  Let  us  never  say  anything 
about  this,  but  go  home  and  raise  the 
men.'  " 

It  speaks  volumes  for  Lincoln's  abso- 
lute justice  and  for  Medill's  fairminded- 
ness,  that  even  after  the  lapse  of  years,  the 
editor  could  bring  himself  to  tell  how 
268 


DAILY    RECEPTIONS 

Lincoln  called  him  "  coward,"  and  admit 
that  he  was  right. 

Usually  the  President  sat  out  impor- 
tunity in  an  attitude  of  patient  waiting. 
One  summer  afternoon  General  Fry  found 
him  listening  to  a  common  soldier.  He 
looked  worn  and  tired.  "  Well,  my  man, 
that  may  all  be  so,  but  you  must  go  to 
your  officers  about  it,"  he  said  when  the 
petitioner  stopped  for  breath.  Again  the 
tale  recommenced,  and  the  President  gazed 
wearily  through  his  office  window  at  the 
broad  river  in  the  distance.  Finally  he 
turned  to  him  out  of  patience. 

"  Go  away,"  he  said.  "  Now  go  away. 
I  cannot  meddle  in  your  case.  I  could  as 
easily  bail  out  the  Potomac  with  a  tea- 
spoon as  attend  to  all  the  details  of  the 
army." 

It  was  not  often  that  he  showed  even 

so   much   feeling.     Ordinarily   he   trusted 

to  the  soft  answer  which  turns  away  wrath, 

or  to  the  humorous  answer  which  disarms 

269 


ABRAHAMLINCOLN 

resentment.  The  wittiest  of  all  of  these 
he  made  in  answering  a  man  who  wanted 
a  pass  to  Richmond. 

"  I  would  gladly  give  you  the  pass  if 
it  would  do  you  any  good,"  he  said.  "  But 
in  the  last  two  years  I  have  given  passes  to 
Richmond  to  250,000  men,  and  not  one  of 
them  has  managed  to  get  there  yet." 

But  even  wit  did  not  make  refusal  easy 
to  this  kind-hearted  man.  He  extracted 
a  grim  amusement  from  his  attack  of 
varioloid  by  saying  that  at  last  he  "  had 
something  he  could  give  to  everybody !  " 

Once  in  a  while  he  had  the  pleasant  sur- 
prise of  a  visitor  with  something  important 
and  helpful  to  say.  At  the  time  he  was 
considering  a  proclamation  of  amnesty, 
Mr.  Robert  Dale  Owen  took  it  upon  him- 
self to  prepare  a  digest  of  historical  prece- 
dents. He  spent  three  months  upon  the 
task,  and  then  asked  permission  to  read 
his  paper  to  the  President.  Mr.  Lincoln, 
knowing  nothing  of  its  contents,  and  sec- 
270 


DAILY    RECEPTIONS 

ing  only  a  very  formidable-looking  docu- 
ment, settled  into  his  attitude  of  patient 
endurance.  But  this  soon  gave  way  to 
alert  interest.  He  began  asking  questions, 
and  interrupting  with  requests  that  cer- 
tain paragraphs  be  read  again.  When 
Mr.  Owen  finished,  and  offered  him  the 
paper,  he  accepted  it  with  hearty  thanks. 

"  Mr.  Owen,  it  is  due  to  you  that  I 
should  say  that  you  have  conferred  a  very 
essential  service  both  upon  me  and  upon 
the  country  by  the  preparation  of  this 
paper.  It  contains  that  which  it  was  ex- 
ceedingly important  that  I  should  know, 
but  which,  if  left  to  myself,  I  never  should 
have  known,  because  I  have  not  the  time 
necessary  for  such  an  examination  of  au- 
thorities as  a  review  of  this  kind  involves. 
And  I  want  to  say,  secondly,  that  if  I 
had  the  time,  I  could  not  have  done  the 
work  as  well  as  you  have  done  it." 

Nothing  showed  his  patience  and  kindli- 
ness more  than  his  manner  with  the  women 
271 


who  came  to  the  Executive  Office  —  and 
many  were  the  militant  females  he  encoun- 
tered during  his  Presidency. 

"  To-day,  Mrs.  Major  Blank  of  the  reg- 
ular army  calls  and  urges  the  appointment 
of  her  husband  as  a  brigadier-general. 
She  is  a  saucy  woman,  and  I  am  afraid 
she  will  keep  tormenting  me  till  I  may 
have  to  do  it,"  is  his  autograph  confession 
of  a  spirited  feminine  attack;  and  of  their 
inequality  of  weapons. 

The  wife  of  a  Western  general,  more  en- 
ergetic than  diplomatic,  descended  upon 
the  capital,  demanded  an  interview  with 
the  President,  and  upbraided  him  with 
meaning  to  ruin  her  husband.  Lincoln  be- 
gan to  talk  about  the  difficulty  she  must 
have  experienced  in  making  the  journey 
from  the  West  alone;  more  of  a  journey 
then  than  now.  He  was  so  kind  that  she 
had  to  respond,  but  she  was  very  per- 
sistent, and  very  much  in  earnest,  and  had 
no  idea  of  stopping  there.  Again  and 
272 


DAILY    RECEPTIONS 

again  she  returned  to  the  charge ;  again 
and  again  he  parried.  He  was  courteous, 
even  sympathetic,  but  he  took  no  notice  of 
her  questions  or  insinuations,  and  gave 
her  not  a  single  answer.  "  I  had  to  ex- 
ercise all  the  rude  tact  I  have,  to  avoid 
quarreling  with  her,"  he  said  feelingly 
when  the  ordeal  was  over. 

But  it  was  in  dealing  with  women  in  dis- 
tress, particularly  with  women  in  the  hum- 
bler walks  of  life,  that  his  kindness  was 
most  marked. 

"It  is  hard  to  portray  the  exquisite 
pathos  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  character,  as  man- 
ifested in  his  acts  from  time  to  time," 
Mr.  James  Speed  once  said  to  my  father, 
in  telling  him  of  an  incident  that  had  come 
to  his  knowledge.  It  was  at  the  end  of 
one  of  the  daily  receptions. 

"  Is  that  all?  "  Mr.  Lincoln  asked. 

"  There  is  one  poor  woman  here  yet, 
Mr.  President,"  Edward,  the  colored 
usher,  replied.  "  She  has  been  here  for 
18  273 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

several  days  and  has  been  crying  and  tak- 
ing on,  and  has  n't  got  a  chance  to  come 
in  yet." 

"  Let  her  in,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln. 

The  woman  told  her  story.  It  was  just 
after  the  battle  of  Gettysburg.  She  had  a 
husband  and  three  sons  in  the  army,  and 
was  left  alone  to  fight  the  hard  battle  of 
life.  At  first  her  husband  had  sent  her 
regularly  a  part  of  his  pay,  and  she  had 
managed  to  live.  But  gradually  he  had 
yielded  to  the  temptations  of  camp  life, 
and  no  more  remittances  came.  Her  boys 
had  become  scattered  among  the  various 
armies,  and  she  was  without  help.  Would 
not  the  President  discharge  one  of  them 
that  he  might  come  home  to  her? 

While  the  recital  was  going  on  the 
President  stood  before  the  fireplace,  his 
hands  crossed  behind  his  back,  his  head 
bent  in  earnest  thought.  When  the  woman 
ended,  and  waited  for  his  reply,  his  lips 
opened  and  he  spoke,  not  as  if  he  were  re- 
274 


DAILY    RECEPTIONS 

plying  to  what  she  said,  but  rather  as  if 
he  were  in  abstracted  and  unconscious  self- 
communion. 

"  I  have  two,  and  you  have  none." 

That  was  all  he  said.  Then  he  walked 
across  to  his  writing  table,  and  taking  a 
blank  card,  wrote  upon  it  an  order  for  the 
son's  discharge.  Upon  another  paper  he 
wrote  out  in  great  detail  where  she  should 
present  it,  to  what  department,  at  what 
office,  and  to  what  official ;  giving  her  such 
directions  that  she  might  personally  follow 
the  red-tape  labyrinth. 

A  few  days  later,  at  a  similar  close  of 
the  general  reception  for  the  day,  Edward 
said,  "  That  woman,  Mr.  President,  is  here 
again,  and  still  crying." 

"Let  her  in,"  said  Lincoln.  "What 
can  be  the  matter  now  ?  " 

Once  more  he  stood  in  the  same  spot,  be- 
fore the  fireplace,  and  for  the  second  time 
heard  her  story.  The  President's  card 
had  been  a  magic  passport.  It  had 
275 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

opened  forbidden  doors,  and  softened  the 
sternness  of  official  countenances.  By  its 
help  she  had  found  headquarters,  camp, 
regiment  and  company.  But  instead  of 
giving  a  mother's  embrace  to  a  lost  son  re- 
stored, she  had  arrived  only  in  time  to 
follow  him  to  the  grave.  The  battle  of 
Gettysburg,  his  wounds,  his  death  in  the 
hospital  —  the  story  came  in  eloquent  frag- 
ments through  her  ill-stifled  sobs.  And 
now,  would  the  President  give  her  the  next 
one  of  her  boys? 

Once  more  Mr.  Lincoln  responded  with 
sententious  curtness,  as  if  talking  to  him- 
self, 

"  I  have  two,  and  you  have  none." 
Sharp   and   rather   stern,   the   compres- 
sion of  his  lips  marking  the  struggle  be- 
tween official  duty  and  human  sympathy, 
he  walked  once  again  to  his  little  writing 
table  and  took  up  his  pen  to  write  for  the 
second  time  an  order  which  should  give  the 
pleading  woman  one  of  her  remaining  boys. 
276 


And  the  woman,  as  if  in  obedience  to  an 
impulse  she  could  not  control,  moved  after 
him,  and  stood  by  his  side  as  he  wrote,  and 
with  the  familiarity  of  a  mother  placed  her 
hand  on  the  President's  head  and  smoothed 
his  wandering  and  tangled  hair.  Human 
grief  and  sympathy  had  overleapt  all  the 
barriers  of  convention,  and  the  ruler  of  a 
great  nation  was  truly  the  servant,  friend, 
and  protector  of  this  humble  woman, 
clothed  for  the  moment  with  a  paramount 
claim  of  loyal  sacrifice. 

The  order  was  written  and  signed. 
The  President  rose  and  thrust  it  into  her 
hand  with  the  choking  exclamation, 
"  There ! "  and  hurried  from  the  room, 
followed,  so  long  as  he  could  hear,  by  the 
thanks  and  blessings  of  an  overjoyed 
mother's  heart. 

Lincoln's  sympathy  for  the  soldiers  was 
very  genuine.  They  were  not  only  fight- 
ing his  country's  battles  —  they  came 
from  that  large  mass  of  sturdy  citizenship 
277 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

of  which  he  spoke  with  pride  and  affection 
as  "  the  common  people."  "  With  us 
every  soldier  is  a  man  of  character,  and 
must  be  treated  with  more  consideration 
than  is  customary  in  Europe,"  he  ex- 
plained to  a  French  nobleman. 

He  recognized  the  potential  force  in 
each  single  regiment.  "  I  happen  tempo- 
rarily to  occupy  the  White  House.  I  am 
a  living  witness  that  any  one  of  your  chil- 
dren may  look  to  come  here  as  my  father's 
child  has,"  he  told  an  Ohio  regiment ;  and 
another  time  he  remarked  that  any  regi- 
ment of  the  army  could  furnish  material 
and  ability  to  fill  all  the  highest  offices  in 
the  Government. 

His  visits  to  camps  and  army  corps 
were  an  ovation,  for  the  "  boys "  loved 
him  in  return,  and  responded  in  every  way 
permitted  by  discipline.  It  was  not  only 
for  soldiers  in  the  abstract  that  he  cared. 
He  sampled  their  rations,  chuckled  over 
their  repartee,  and  "  sized  up  "  individual 
278 


DAILY    RECEPTIONS 

members  of  a  company  as  he  passed  by; 
while  for  those  in  trouble  he  agonized  in 
spirit  as  no  ruler  of  this  world  had  ever 
done. 

Court-martial  cases  reached  a  number 
approaching  30,000  a  year  during  the 
war;  and  although,  of  course,  only  a  small 
proportion  were  for  capital  offenses,  the 
latter  were  referred  by  hundreds  to  Presi- 
dent Lincoln;  and  each  case  brought  to 
his  notice  became  the  subject  of  his  per- 
sonal solicitude.  Secretary  Stanton  and 
officers  of  the  army  protested  against  his 
wholesale  clemency.  He  would  ruin  the 
army,  they  declared;  but  the  military  tel- 
egraph was  kept  busy  with  his  messages 
staying  executions  and  asking  details  of 
evidence.  Attorney-General  Bates  told 
him  flatly  that  he  was  not  fit  to  be  en- 
trusted with  the  pardoning  power.  This 
did  not  move  him  in  the  least.  He  pri- 
vately believed  Bates  to  be  as  "  pigeon- 
hearted  "  as  himself. 

279 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Judge-Advocate  General  Holt  labored 
with  him,  pointing  out  why  it  was  better 
rigidly  to  enforce  the  law.  "  Yes,  your 
reasons  are  very  good,"  he  would  reply, 
"but  I  don't  think  I  can  do  it."  He 
"  did  not  believe  it  would  make  a  man  any 
better  to  shoot  him,"  and  argued  that  if 
the  Government  kept  him  alive  it  could 
at  least  get  some  work  out  of  him. 

He  used  to  tell  his  story  of  the  Irish 
soldier  who  was  asked  why  he  had  de- 
serted. "Well,  Captain,"  said  he,  "it 
was  not  me  fault.  I  've  a  heart  in  me 
breast  as  brave  as  Julius  Caesar;  but  when 
the  battle  begins,  somehow  or  other  these 
cowardly  legs  of  mine  will  run  away  wid 
me!" 

"  I  have  no  doubt,"  the  President  would 
add,  "  that  is  true  of  many  a  man  who 
honestly  means  to  do  his  duty,  but  is  over- 
come by  a  physical  fear  greater  than  his 
will.  I  am  not  sure  how  I  would  act  my- 
self if  Minie  balls  were  whistling,  and 
280 


DAILY    RECEPTIONS 

those  great  oblong  shells  were  shrieking 
in  my  ears." 

He  used  to  call  cases  of  cowardice  and 
desertion  his  "  leg  cases."  In  the  press 
of  business  large  numbers  of  them  accumu- 
lated on  his  desk;  when  he  had  leisure  he 
would  send  for  Judge  Holt  and  go  over 
them.  John  Hay,  making  record  in  his 
diary  of  six  hours  of  a  July  day  spent  in 
this  manner,  commented  on  the  eagerness 
with  which  Mr.  Lincoln  caught  at  any  fact 
which  would  justify  saving  the  life  of  a 
condemned  soldier.  He  was  only  merciless 
in  cases  where  meanness  or  cruelty  were 
shown.  "  Cases  of  cowardice  he  was  espe- 
cially averse  to  punishing  with  death. 
He  said  it  would  frighten  the  poor  devils 
too  terribly  to  shoot  them."  "  Let  him 
fight  instead  of  shooting  him,"  he  en- 
dorsed on  the  case  of  a  man  who  had  once 
before  deserted,  and  then  reenlisted. 

The  sentence  of  another  who  had  safely 
escaped  into  Mexico  he  approved,  saying, 
281 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

**We  will  condemn  him  as  they  sell  hogs 
in  Indiana,  *  as  they  run.'  * 

Schuyler  Colfax,  happening  on  such  a 
scene,  carried  away  a  memory  of  Lin- 
coln's exceeding  reluctance  to  approve  the 
death  penalty.  One  case  he  laid  aside, 
saying  he  would  wait  a  few  days  until  be 
could  read  the  evidence.  Another  he  put 
by  "  until  I  can  settle  in  my  mind  whether 
this  soldier  can  better  serve  the  country 
dead  or  living."  To  still  a  third  he  said 
that  the  general  commanding  would  be  in 
Washington  soon,  and  he  would  talk  it  over 
with  him.  At  last  Judge  Holt  presented 
a  very  flagrant  case,  with  the  remark  that 
this  might  meet  the  President's  require- 
ment of  serving  the  country  better  dead 
than  living;  but  Lincoln  answered  that, 
anyway,  he  guessed  he  'd  put  it  among  his 
"leg  cases." 

Some  of  the  reasons  he  gave  for  grant- 
ing pardons  were  whimsical  enough,  but 
there  was  *  sound  principle  underlying  his 


DAILY    RECEPTIONS 

action.  He  tried  to  probe  for  motives; 
and  if  he  learned  that  a  man's  general 
record  was  good,  he  accepted  that  as  pre- 
sumptive evidence  that  he  meant  to  do 
right,  wherever  his  "  cowardly  legs " 
might  have  carried  him. 

**  This  life  is  too  precious  to  be  lost," 
he  said  in  the  case  of  a  boy  who  fell  asleep 
on  guard  because  in  addition  to  his  own 
duty,  be  had  volunteered  to  take  the  place 
of  a  sick  comrade, 

**  Did  you  say  this  boy  was  once  badly 
wounded?  Then,  since  the  Scriptures  say 
that  in  the  shedding  of  blood  is  remission 
of  sins,  I  guess  we'll  have  to  let  him 
off,"  was  his  decree  in  another  case.  **  If 
a  man  had  more  than  one  life  I  think 
a  little  hanging  would  not  hurt  this  one," 
he  said  again.  **  But  after  he  is  once  dead 
we  cannot  bring  him  to  life,  no  matter  how 
sorry  we  may  be ;  so  the  boy  shall  be  par- 
doned," and  resting  a  moment  from  his 
labors,  he  threw  up  his  spectacles,  and  told 

m 


his  story  of  a  darky  in  one  of  the  bravest 
regiments  at  Fort  Donelson. 

"  Were  you  in  the  fight  ?  "  some  one 
asked  him. 

"  Had  a  little  taste  ob  it,  sah." 

"  Stood  your  ground,  did  you?  " 

"  No,  sah  —  I  runs." 

"  Ran  at  the  first  fire,  did  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sah,  an9  I  would  'a  run  sooner 
if  I  knowed  it  was  a-comin'." 

"  That  was  not  very  creditable  to  your 
courage." 

"  Dat  is  n't  my  line,  sah.  Cookin*  is  my 
perfession." 

"  But  have  you  no  regard  for  your  repu- 
tation?" 

"  Reputation  5s  nuffin  to  me  by  de  side 
ob  life." 

"  Do  you  consider  your  life  worth  more 
than  other  peoples'?  " 

"  Worth  mo'  to  me,  sah." 

"  Do  you  think  your  company  would 
have  missed  you  if  you  had  been  killed?  " 
284, 


DAILY    RECEPTIONS 

"  Maybe  not,  sah.  A  dead  white  man 
ain'  much  to  dese  sojers,  let  alone  a  dead 
nigger.  But  I  'd  'a'  missed  myself,  an' 
dat  's  de  point  wif  me." 

Many  of  Lincoln's  daily  visitors  came 
on  these  sad  errands.  Congressmen  ap- 
pealed to  him  to  pardon  their  constituents. 
"  Why  don't  you  men  up  there  in  Congress 
repeal  the  law,  instead  of  coming  and  ask- 
ing me  to  override  it  and  make  it  practi- 
cally a  dead  letter?  "  he  asked.  But  they 
did  not  see  fit  to  do  so,  and  he  plodded 
wearily  through  endless  masses  of  testi- 
mony. 

It  was  in  this  labor  that  he  spent  the 
morning  after  his  reelection.  He  became 
more  and  more  convinced  of  the  sickening 
uselessness  of  "  this  butchering  business." 
"  There  are  already  too  many  weeping 
widows  in  the  United  States,"  he  said. 
"  For  God's  sake  do  not  ask  me  to  add  to 
the  'number !  "  and  he  almost  invariably 
suspended  execution  "  until  further  or- 
285 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ders,"  which,  needless  to  say,  were  never 
given. 

"  If  a  man  comes  to  him  with  a  touching 
story,  his  judgment  is  almost  certain  to 
be  affected  by  it.  Should  the  applicant 
be  a  woman  —  a  wife,  mother,  or  sister  — 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  her  tears,  if  noth- 
ing else,  are  sure  to  prevail,"  Attorney- 
General  Bates  declared. 

The  most  whimsical  reason  sufficed. 

"My  poor  girl,"  he  said  to  a  young 
woman  in  a  neat  but  scanty  dress,  "  you 
have  come  with  no  governor  or  senator  or 
member  of  Congress  to  plead  your  cause. 
You  seem  truthful,  and  you  don't  wear 
hoops,  and  I  '11  be  whipped  but  I  '11  pardon 
your  brother ! " 

Some  of  these  cases  came  very  close  to 
him  personally,  as  he  read  the  names  of 
men  or  sons  of  men  he  had  known ;  but 
even  when  no  personal  acquaintance  in- 
tensified his  interest,  the  care  he  bestowed 
upon  them  was  enormous.  Not  only  one 
286 


DAILY    RECEPTIONS 

telegram,  but  several  would  be  sent  about 
a  single  case.  Some  of  them,  long  and 
full  of  detail,  betrayed  the  strain  to  which 
his  sympathy  had  been  subjected.  One, 
to  General  Mead,  was  as  follows: 

An  intelligent  woman  in  deep  distress 
called  this  morning,  saying  her  husband,  a 
lieutenant  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  was 
to  be  shot  next  Monday  for  desertion;  and 
putting  a  letter  in  my  hand,  upon  which  I 
relied  for  particulars,  she  left  me  without 
mentioning  a  name  or  other  particular  by 
which  to  identify  the  case.  On  opening  the 
letter  I  found  it  equally  vague,  having 
nothing  to  identify  her  by  except  her  sig- 
nature, which  seems  to  be  "  Mrs.  Anna  S. 
King."  I  could  not  again  find  her.  If  you 
have  a  case  which  you  shall  think  is  probably 
the  one  intended,  please  apply  my  despatch 
of  this  morning  to  it. 

His  "  despatch  of  this  morning "  was 
his  usual  order  to  postpone  execution  till 
further  orders. 

287 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Thaddeus  Stevens  once  went  with  a  con- 
stituent of  his,  an  elderly  woman,  to  the 
President  on  an  errand  of  mercy.  Mr. 
Lincoln  granted  her  request,  and  her 
gratitude  was  literally  too  deep  for  words. 
Not  a  syllable  did  she  utter  until  they 
were  well  on  their  way  out  of  the  White 
House,  when  she  stood  still  and  broke  forth 
vehemently : 

"  I  knew  it  was  a  Copperhead  lie !  " 

"What  do  you  mean,  madam?"  he 
asked. 

"  They  told  me  that  he  was  an  ugly- 
looking  man !  He  is  not.  He  is  the 
handsomest  man  I  ever  saw  in  my  life !  " 


288 


XIV 

THE  MEMORANDUM   OF   AUGUST   TWENTY- 
THIRD 

'  T  AM  here  by  the  blunders  of  the  Demo- 
X  crats,"  Lincoln  told  Hugh  McCulloch. 
"  If,  instead  of  resolving  that  the  war  was 
a  failure,  they  had  resolved  that  I  was  a 
failure,  and  denounced  me  for  not  more 
vigorously  prosecuting  it,  I  should  not 
have  been  reflected." 

No  act  or  episode  of  his  life  was  more 
characteristic  than  his  attitude  toward  a 
second  term.  In  talking  with  strangers 
he  discouraged  any  mention  of  it,  but  to 
friends  he  frankly  admitted  his  readiness 
to  continue  the  work  he  had  entened  upon. 
"  A  second  term  would  be  a  great  honor, 
'9  289 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

and  a  great  labor,  which  together,  per- 
haps, I  would  not  decline  if  tendered." 

His  two  secretaries  were,  of  course, 
keenly  interested ;  and  the  way  he  pursued 
his  undeviating  course,  not  indifferent  to, 
but  regardless  of,  his  political  fate,  would 
have  won  their  undying  admiration,  had 
it  not  been  his  long  before. 

"  This  town  is  now  as  dismal  as  a  de- 
faced tombstone,"  John  Hay  wrote  my 
father  late  in  the  summer  of  1863.  "  The 
Tycoon  is  in  fine  whack.  I  have  rarely 
seen  him  so  serene  and  so  busy.  He  is 
managing  this  war,  the  draft,  foreign  re- 
lations, and  planning  a  reconstruction  of 
the  Union,  all  in  one.  I  never  knew  with 
what  tyrannous  authority  he  rules  the 
cabinet  until  now.  The  most  important 
things  he  decides,  and  there  is  no  cavil. 
I  am  growing  more  and  more  firmly  con- 
vinced that  the  good  of  the  country  abso- 
lutely demands  that  he  should  be  kept 
where  he  is  till  this  thing  blows  over. 
290 


AUGUST    TWENTY-THIRD 

There  is  no  man  in  the  country  so  wise, 
so  gentle  and  so  firm.  I  believe  the  hand 
of  God  placed  him  where  he  is." 

"  Some  well-meaning  newspapers  advise 
the  President  to  keep  his  fingers  out  of  the 
military  pie,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing," 
he  wrote  again ;  "  the  truth  is,  if  he  did, 
the  pie  would  be  a  sorry  mess.  The  old 
man  sits  here  and  wields  like  a  backwoods 
Jupiter  the  bolts  of  war  and  the  machinery 
of  Government,  with  a  hand  equally  steady 
and  equally  firm.  ...  I  do  not  know 
whether  the  nation  is  worthy  of  him  for 
another  term.  I  know  the  people  want 
him.  There  is  no  mistaking  that  fact. 
But  politicians  are  strong  yet  and  he  is 
not  '  their  kind  of  a  cat.'  I  hope  God 
won't  see  fit  to  scourge  us  for  our  sins  by 
any  one  of  the  two  or  three  most  promi- 
nent candidates  on  the  ground.  .  .  ." 

Republicans  generally  felt  as  did  these 
two  young  men,  but  the  President  had 
active  critics  and  opponents  within  his  own 
291 


party.  "  Corruption,  intrigue  and  malice 
are  doing  their  worst,  but  I  do  not  think 
it  is  in  the  cards  to  beat  the  Tycoon," 
my  father  wrote  in  his  turn.  Curiously 
enough,  the  most  determined  opposition 
within  Republican  ranks  came  from  anti- 
slavery  men,  who  could  not  forgive  the 
Emancipator  for  the  deliberation  with 
which  he  took  the  steps  toward  freedom. 
There  were  also  those  who  blamed  him  for 
the  slow  progress  of  the  war. 

It  was  hard,  however,  for  these  elements 
of  discontent  to  find  a  rallying  point,  since 
no  prominent  Republican  in  Congress  or 
in  the  military  service  cared  to  enter  the 
ungrateful  contest.  In  the  cabinet  only 
one  man  was  short-sighted  enough  to 
imagine  he  could  make  headway  against 
Lincoln's  wide  popularity.  This  was 
Chase,  who  had  been  the  first  to  assure 
Lincoln  of  his  support  in  1860.  Pure 
minded  and  absolutely  devoted  to  the 
Union  though  he  was,  he  seemed  incapable 
292 


AUGUST    TWENTY-THIRD 

of  judging  men  or  motives  —  even  his  own 
—  correctly.  He  really  thought  himself 
free  from  political  ambition,  and  truly  Lin- 
coln's friend,  yet  for  months  he  was  busy 
writing  letters  in  the  interests  of  his  own 
candidacy. 

Lincoln  knew  of  this,  but  went  on  ap- 
pointing Mr.  Chase's  partizans  to  office. 
John  Hay,  wrathfully  indignant,  ventured 
to  free  his  mind  to  his  chief,  telling  him 
he  was  making  himself  particeps  criminis 
by  these  appointments.  "  He  seemed  much 
amused  at  Chase's  mad  hunt  after  the 
Presidency,"  the  young  man  wrote.  "  He 
says  it  may  win.  He  hopes  the  country 
will  never  do  worse." 

The  movement  in  Chase's  favor  reached 
its  culmination  in  a  secret  circular  signed 
by  a  committee  of  which  Senator  Pomeroy 
of  Kansas  was  chairman,  which  criticized 
Lincoln's  "  tendency  toward  compromises 
and  temporary  expedients "  and  lauded 
Chase  as  the  man  to  rescue  the  country 
293 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

from  present  and  future  ills.  Copies  of 
this  soon  reached  the  White  House.  Lin- 
coln refused  to  look  at  them.  Shortly 
afterward  it  got  into  print.  Secretary 
Chase  wrote  to  the  President  offering  to 
resign,  but  assuring  him  that  he  had  no 
knowledge  of  the  document  before  seeing 
it  in  the  newspapers. 

Mr.  Robert  Lincoln  remembers  that  he 
was  at  home  at  the  time,  and  that  after 
dinner  his  father  strolled  into  his  room, 
showed  him  Mr.  Chase's  letter,  asked  for 
writing  materials,  and  sitting  down  wrote 
a  note  in  answer,  to  the  effect  that  he  knew 
just  as  little  about  such  things  as  his 
friends  allowed  him  to  know,  that  neither 
of  them  could  be  held  responsible  for  acts 
committed  without  their  instigation  or  ap- 
proval, and  adding,  "  Whether  you  shall 
remain  at  the  head  of  the  Treasury  De- 
partment is  a  question  which  I  will  not 
allow  myself  to  consider  from  any  stand- 
point other  than  my  judgment  of  the  pub- 
294 


AUGUST    TWENTY-THIRD 

lie  service,  and,  in  that  view,  I  do  not 
perceive  occasion  for  a  change." 

When  he  showed  this  to  his  son,  the 
latter  asked  in  surprise  if  he  had  not  seen 
the  circular.  Mr.  Lincoln  stopped  him 
almost  sternly,  saying  that  a  good  many 
people  had  tried  to  tell  him  something  it 
did  not  suit  him  to  hear,  and  that  his 
answer  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
was  literally  true.  "  Thereupon,"  Mr. 
Robert  Lincoln  added,  "  at  his  request  I 
called  a  messenger,  and  the  note  to  Mr. 
Chase  was  sent." 

Mr.  Chase's  candidacy,  however,  had  no 
foundation  except  in  the  imagination  of  a 
few  personal  followers,  and  perished  for 
lack  of  nourishment.  An  attempt,  made 
without  Grant's  knowledge,  to  stampede 
the  country  for  that  general,  failed  for  the 
same  reason.  Lincoln  regarded  that  also 
with  the  utmost  serenity.  "  If  he  takes 
Richmond,  let  him  have  it,"  he  said. 

But  the  talk  annoyed  him.  "  I  wish  they 
295 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

would  stop  thrusting  that  subject  of  th€ 
Presidency  into  my  face,"  he  remarked. 
"  I  don't  want  to  hear  anything  about  it." 

It  was  neither  Chase  nor  Grant,  but 
Fremont  who  was  finally  nominated  by 
Republican  malcontents  in  a  much-her- 
alded but  poorly  attended  convention  at 
Cleveland.  Lincoln,  on  hearing  that  most 
of  the  expected  leaders  stayed  away,  and 
that  at  no  time  was  the  attendance  greater 
than  four  hundred,  picked  up  the  Bible 
which  lay  habitually  on  his  desk,  and  after 
turning  over  the  leaves  a  moment  read: 

"  And  every  one  that  was  in  debt,  and 
every  one  that  was  discontented,  gathered 
themselves  unto  him ;  and  he  became  a  cap- 
tain over  them,  and  there  were  with  him 
about  four  hundred  men." 

The  great  current  had  set  toward  Lin- 
coln, and  when  the  Republican  National 
Convention  came  together  in  Baltimore  on 
the  7th  of  June,  1864,  it  had  nothing  to 
do  but  to  record  the  popular  will.  The 
296 


AUGUST    TWENTY-THIRD 

choice  of  a  Vice-president  presented  more 
difficulty,  for  there  was  an  impression 
abroad  that  it  would  be  wise  to  select  a 
war  Democrat.  Lincoln  was  besieged  to 
make  his  wishes  known,  but  refused,  even 
to  his  closest  friends,  being  convinced  that 
it  was  a  question  in  which  he  had  abso- 
lutely no  right  to  interfere.  The  final 
choice  was  made  so  quickly  that  the  Presi- 
dent, walking  over  to  the  War  Depart- 
ment, in  quest  of  news,  heard  of  Andrew 
Johnson's  nomination  before  the  messenger 
despatched  a  few  minutes  earlier,  with  a 
telegram  announcing  his  own  renomina- 
tion,  had  succeeded  in  finding  him. 

Next  day,  for  the  second  time  in  his  life, 
this  pioneer  ruler  faced  a  committee  sent 
to  tell  him  that  he  had  been  nominated  for 
the  highest  office  within  the  people's  gift. 
This  time  he  received  them  in  the  great 
East  Room  instead  of  in  his  modest 
Springfield  parlor.  He,  as  well  as  his  sur- 
roundings, was  altered.  Experience  had 
297 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

ripened  him,  responsibility  had  aged  him. 
His  benignity  of  expression  was  greater, 
his  physical  vigor  less.  There  was  in  his 
bearing  all  the  old  courage,  and  a  greater 
consciousness  of  power. 

The  summer  proved  to  be  full  of  fight- 
ing and  frightful  losses  in  the  armies,  and 
of  consequent  panics  among  politicians. 
It  became  necessary  to  resort  to  a  draft, 
and  this  in  itself  indicated  such  waning 
enthusiasm  that  leading  Republicans 
begged  the  President  to  withdraw  the  call, 
or  at  least  to  suspend  it  until  after  the 
election.  "  What  is  the  Presidency  worth 
to  me,  if  I  have  no  country  ? "  was  his 
answer. 

He  brought  serious  criticism  upon  him- 
self by  refusing  to  sign  a  bill  passed  by 
Congress  which  prescribed  a  form  for  re- 
establishing State  governments  based  on 
the  assumption  that  they  had  been  out  of 
the  Union.  Lincoln's  contention  from  the 
first  had  been  that  the  Union  was  per- 
298 


AUGUST    TWENTY-THIRD 

petual,  and  that  they  had  never  passed, 
and  could  not  pass  by  revolution,  out  of 
Federal  control.  It  was,  he  admitted,  "  a 
question  of  metaphysics,"  but  it  involved 
the  principle  on  which  all  his  action  had 
been  based,  and  which  he  could  not  ignore, 
even  though  it  might  have  serious  conse- 
quences for  himself. 

The  Peace  men,  meanwhile,  were  clamor- 
ing for  an  end  of  the  war.  Horace 
Greeley  insisted  with  such  vehemence  that 
Confederate  commissioners  already  were  in 
Canada,  empowered  and  ready  to  treat 
with  the  Federal  authorities,  that  Lincoln, 
to  convince  him  and  others  like-minded 
that  the  administration  was  as  anxious  as 
they  could  be  to  bring  the  war  to  a  close, 
empowered  Greeley  himself  to  go  to  Can- 
ada, and  if  he  found  the  alleged  commis- 
sioners properly  authorized,  to  bring  them 
to  Washington.  The  mission  ended  as 
Lincoln  supposed  it  would,  in  proving  the 
utter  falsity  of  Greeley's  assertions,  and 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

in  making  that  earnest  gentleman  a  bit 
ridiculous. 

"  I  sent  Brother  Greeley  a  commission. 
I  guess  I  am  about  even  with  him,"  he  said 
with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye. 

But  all  these  causes  combined  to  increase 
the  popular  unrest,  and  to  breed  dissatis- 
faction with  the  administration.  McClel- 
lan  seemed  the  foreordained  Democratic 
candidate,  but  the  party  managers,  real- 
izing the  advantage  of  making  their  op- 
ponents, fight  an  unseen  foe,  and  at  the 
same  time  of  keeping  themselves  in  a  po- 
sition to  drop  McClellan  and  adopt  some 
one  else  if  chance  and  the  fortunes  of  war 
dictated,  postponed  their  national  conven- 
tion until  September;  and  having  no  can- 
didate of  their  own,  were  free  to  devote 
all  their  time  and  energy  to  attacks  upon 
the  administration. 

In  the  campaign  of  I860  Lincoln  had 
possessed  no  shadow  of  authority.  Now 
that  he  commanded  all  the  resources  of  the 
300 


AUGUST    TWENTY-THIRD 

Government,  he  was  implored  to  make 
promises,  to  assist  his  friends  and  oppose 
his  enemies. 

"  I  recognize  no  such  thing  as  political 
friendship  personal  to  myself,"  he  an- 
swered, and  as  far  as  promises  were  con- 
cerned, he  kept  himself  as  free  as  he  had 
done  four  years  before  when  he  announced 
that  he  would  go  to  Washington  "  an  un- 
pledged man." 

One  who  was  present  related  to  my 
father  the  details  of  a  stormy  interview 
which  took  place  between  the  President, 
Simon  Cameron  and  Thaddeus  Stevens. 
They  had  come  to  talk  over  the  political 
situation  in  Pennsylvania.  Mr.  Stevens 
said :  "  Mr.  President,  our  convention  at 
Baltimore  has  nominated  you  again,  and 
not  only  that,  we  are  going  to  elect  you. 
But  the  certainty  of  that  will  depend  very 
much  on  the  vote  we  can  give  you  in  Penn- 
sylvania in  October;  and  in  order  that  we 
may  be  able  in  our  State  to  go  to  work 
301 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

with  a  good  will  I  want  you  to  make  us  one 
promise;  namely,  that  you  will  reorganize 
your  cabinet  and  leave  Montgomery  Blair 
out  of  it." 

Mr.  Stevens  went  on  to  elaborate  his 
reasons,  and  a  running  fire  of  criticism 
and  comment  was  entered  into  between 
the  three  gentlemen,  gradually  rising  in 
warmth;  the  whole  interview  lasting  some 
two  or  three  hours.  As  the  discussion  pro- 
ceeded, Mr.  Lincoln  rose  from  his  chair 
and  walked  up  and  down  the  room. 

The  issue  being  made  up,  he  gave  his 
answer,  towering  to  his  full  height,  and 
delivering  his  words  with  emphatic  ges- 
tures and  intense  earnestness. 

"  Mr.  Stevens,  I  am  very  sorry  to  be 
compelled  to  deny  your  request  to  make 
such  a  promise.  If  I  were  even  myself 
inclined  to  make  it,  I  have  no  right  to  do 
so.  What  right  have  I  to  promise  you 
to  remove  Mr.  Blair,  and  not  make  a  simi- 
lar promise  to  any  other  gentleman  of  in- 
302 


AUGUST    TWENTY-THIRD 

fluence  to  remove  any  other  member  of  my 
cabinet  whom  he  does  not  happen  to  like? 
The  Republican  party  wisely  or  unwisely 
has  made  me  their  nominee  for  President, 
without  asking  any  such  pledge  at  my 
hands.  Is  it  proper  that  you  should  de- 
mand it,  representing  only  a  portion  of 
that  great  party?  Has  it  come  to  this, 
that  the  voters  of  this  country  are  asked  to 
elect  a  man  to  be  President  —  to  be  Ex- 
ecutive —  to  administer  the  Government, 
and  yet  that  this  man  is  to  have  no  will  or 
discretion  of  his  own?  Am  I  to  be  the 
mere  puppet  of  power?  To  have  my  con- 
stitutional advisers  selected  beforehand,  to 
be  told  I  must  do  this,  or  leave  that  un- 
done? It  would  be  degrading  to  my  man- 
hood to  consent  to  any  such  bargain  —  I 
was  about  to  say  it  is  equally  degrading  to 
your  manhood  to  ask  it. 

"  I  confess  that  I  desire  to  be  reflected. 
God  knows  I  do  not  want  the  labor  and 
responsibility  of  the  office  for  another  four 
303 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

years.  But  I  have  the  common  pride  of 
humanity  to  wish  my  past  four  years'  ad- 
ministration endorsed;  and  besides  I  hon- 
estly believe  that  I  can  better  serve  the 
nation  in  its  need  and  peril  than  any  new 
man  could  possibly  do.  I  want  to  finish 
this  job  of  putting  down  the  rebellion,  and 
restoring  peace  and  prosperity  to  the  coun- 
try. But  I  would  have  the  courage  to 
refuse  the  office  rather  than  to  accept  on 
such  disgraceful  terms  as  really  not  to  be 
President  after  I  am  elected." 

The  political  horizon  grew  darker  and 
darker.  Military  victory,  which  would 
have  rejoiced  all  hearts  and  turned  the 
current  toward  Republican  success,  was 
denied.  Lincoln  grew  haggard  and  care- 
worn. To  a  friend  who  urged  him  to  go 
away  for  a  fortnight's  rest,  he  replied,  "  I 
cannot  fly  from  my  thoughts.  My  solici- 
tude for  this  great  country  follows  me 
wherever  I  go.  I  do  not  think  it  is  per- 
sonal vanity  or  ambition,  though  I  am  not 
304 


AUGUST    TWENTY-THIRD 

free  from  these  infirmities,  but  I  cannot 
but  feel  that  the  weal  or  woe  of  this  great 
nation  will  be  decided  in  November. 
There  is  no  program  offered  by  any  wing 
of  the  Democratic  party  but  that  must 
result  in  the  permanent  destruction  of  the 
Union." 

Toward  the  end  of  August  he  became 
convinced  that  the  election  was  likely  to 
go  against  him.  Having  come  to  this  con- 
clusion, he  laid  down  for  himself  in  writing 
the  course  he  ought  to  pursue.  On  the 
23d  he  wrote: 

"  This  morning,  as  for  some  days  past, 
it  seems  exceedingly  probable  that  this  ad- 
ministration will  not  be  reflected.  Then 
it  will  be  my  duty  to  so  cooperate  with  the 
President-elect  as  to  save  the  Union  be- 
tween the  election  and  the  inauguration,  as 
he  will  have  secured  his  election  on  such 
ground  that  he  cannot  possibly  save  it 
afterward." 

He  folded  and  pasted  the  sheet  of  paper 
20  305 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

in  such  a  way  that  its  contents  were  hid- 
den, and  as  the  members  of  the  cabinet 
came  in,  handed  it  to  each  in  turn,  asking 
them  to  write  their  names  across  the  back. 
Then  he  put  the  paper  away,  giving  no 
hint  of  its  nature. 

Two  days  later  my  father  wrote  to  John 
Hay,  who  was  in  Illinois : 

DEAR  MAJOR:  Hell  is  to  pay.  The  New 
York  politicians  have  got  a  stampede  on  that 
is  about  to  swamp  everything.  Raymond 
and  the  National  Committee  are  here  to-day. 
R.  thinks  a  commission  to  Richmond  is  about 
the  only  salt  to  save  us;  while  the  Tycoon 
sees  and  says  it  would  be  utter  ruination. 
The  matter  is  now  undergoing  consultation. 
Weak-kneed  d — d  fools  .  .  .  are  in  the 
movement  for  a  new  candidate  to  supplant 
the  Tycoon.  Everything  is  darkness  and 
doubt  and  discouragement.  Our  men  see 
giants  in  the  airy  and  unsubstantial  shadows 
of  the  opposition,  and  are  about  to  surrender 
without  a  fight. 

306 


AUGUST    TWENTY-THIRD 

I  think  that  to-day  and  here  is  the  turning- 
point  in  our  crisis.  If  the  President  can  in- 
fect R.  and  his  committee  with  some  of  his 
own  patience  and  pluck,  we  are  saved.  If 
our  friends  will  only  rub  their  eyes  and 
shake  themselves,  and  become  convinced  that 
they  themselves  are  not  dead,  we  shall  win 
the  fight  overwhelmingly. 

Henry  J.  Raymond  was  Chairman  of 
the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Republi- 
can party.  Mr.  Lincoln  answered  his  pro- 
posal to  send  a  commission  to  Richmond 
by  the  same  kindergarten  method  he  had 
used  in  answering  Greeley.  He  asked  Mr. 
Raymond  to  draw  up  an  experimental 
draft  of  resolutions  which  he  proposed 
that  Mr.  Raymond  should  himself  carry  to 
Richmond.  On  seeing  them  in  black  and 
white  the  mission  took  on  a  different 
aspect,  and  Raymond  readily  agreed  that 
such  a  course  would  be  worse  than  losing 
the  election  —  it  would  be  surrendering  it 
in  advance. 

307 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

"  Nevertheless,"  wrote  the  President's 
secretary,  "  the  visit  of  himself  and  com- 
mittee did  great  good.  They  found  the 
President  and  cabinet  much  better  in- 
formed than  themselves,  and  went  home 
encouraged  and  cheered." 

That  proved  indeed  to  be  the  turning- 
point  of  the  campaign.  A  few  days  later 
the  Democrats  nominated  McClellan  upon 
a  platform  declaring  the  war  to  be  a  fail- 
ure. That  in  itself  was  fatal  to  their 
cause,  since  McClellan's  one  chance  of  suc- 
cess lay  in  his  war  record.  "  The  Lord 
preserve  this  country  from  the  kind  of 
peace  they  would  give  us!  It  will  be  a 
dark  day  for  this  nation  if  they  elect  the 
Chicago  ticket !  "  wrote  an  inmate  of  the 
White  House. 

McClellan  himself  was  apparently  some- 
what aghast.  He  did  not  reply  to  the  let- 
ter from  the  Convention  for  some  days. 
Lincoln  was  asked  what  he  thought  could 
308 


AUGUST    TWENTY-THIRD 

be  the  cause  of  the  delay.  "  Oh,"  he  said, 
"  he  's  intrenching." 

Military  and  naval  victories  began  to 
succeed  the  discouragements  of  the  preced- 
ing months;  the  country  awoke  to  the  true 
meaning  of  the  Democratic  platform;  and 
in  a  brilliant  rush  of  enthusiasm  and  hope 
the  political  campaign  went  on  to  its  tri- 
umphant end  with  Republican  majorities 
so  incredibly  large  that  one  patriot  re- 
marked in  the  utmost  reverence,  that  "  The 
Almighty  himself  must  have  stuffed  the 
ballot-boxes." 

The  night  of  election  day  was  rainy  and 
dark.  The  President  splashed  through 
puddles  to  the  War  Department  to  get  the 
returns,  and  sent  the  interesting  despatches 
back  to  Mrs.  Lincoln  at  the  White  House, 
saying,  "  She  is  more  anxious  than  I  am." 

He  was  not  alone  as  he  had  been  four 
years  before  when  the  telegraph  instru- 
ments ticked  news  of  his  victory,  and  the 
309 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

appalling  sense  of  his  responsibility  had 
blotted  out  the  noise  of  cheering  in  the 
streets.  This  election  was  a  vindication  of 
the  way  he  had  borne  his  trust ;  the  verdict 
of  the  people  that  they  held  him  worthy 
to  complete  his  task.  Officials  and  friends 
came  and  went  as  he  read  the  returns.  He 
was  "  most  genial  and  agreeable  all  the 
evening,"  and  when  a  midnight  supper 
appeared  from  some  beneficent  and  mys- 
terious source,  he  took  the  part  of  host, 
and  "  went  awkwardly  and  hospitably  to 
work,"  serving  the  fried  oysters.  He  told 
stories,  and  was  gay  and  happy,  yet  there 
was  no  lack  of  feeling,  even  of  deep  solem- 
nity, in  the  closing  words  of  the  little 
speech  he  made  to  the  serenaders  he  found 
waiting  for  him  when  he  left  the  War  De- 
partment in  the  early  morning  hours  to 
return  to  the  White  House: 

"  I   am  thankful  to  God   for  this   ap- 
proval  of  the   people;   but   while   deeply 
grateful  for  this  mark  of  their  confidence 
310 


AUGUST    TWENTY-THIRD 

in  me,  if  I  know  my  heart,  my  gratitude  is 
free  from  any  taint  of  personal  triumph. 
...  It  is  no  pleasure  to  me  to  triumph 
over  any  one;  but  I  give  thanks  to  the 
Almighty  for  this  evidence  of  the  people's 
resolution  to  stand  by  free  government  and 
the  rights  of  humanity." 

At  the  next  cabinet  meeting  the  Presi- 
dent took  a  paper  from  his  desk.  It  had 
a  series  of  autographs  across  the  back. 
"  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "  do  you  remember 
last  summer  I  asked  you  to  sign  your 
names  to  the  back  of  a  paper  of  which  I 
did  not  show  you  the  inside?  This  is  it. 
Now,  Mr.  Hay,  see  if  you  can  get  this 
open  without  tearing  it."  It  required 
some  little  cutting  to  get  it  open.  Then 
he  read  the  memorandum  of  August  23d 
with  its  signature,  A.  Lincoln,  and  the 
names  on  the  outside,  William  H.  Seward, 
W.  P.  Fessenden,  Edwin  M.  Stanton, 
Gideon  Welles,  Edw.  Bates,  M.  Blair,  and 
J.  P.  Usher. 

311 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

"  You  will  remember,"  he  said,  "  that 
this  was  written  at  a  time  six  days  before 
the  Chicago  nominating  convention,  when 
as  yet  we  had  no  adversary,  and  seemed 
to  have  no  friends.  I  then  solemnly  re- 
solved on  the  course  of  action  indicated 
above.  I  resolved  in  case  of  the  election 
of  General  McClellan,  being  certain  that 
he  would  be  the  candidate,  that  I  would 
see  him  and  talk  matters  over  with  him. 
I  would  say,  '  General,  the  election  has 
demonstrated  that  you  are  stronger  and 
have  more  influence  with  the  American 
people  than  I.  Now  let  us  together,  you 
with  your  influence,  and  I  with  all  the  ex- 
ecutive power  of  the  Government,  try  to 
save  the  country.  You  raise  as  many 
troops  as  you  possibly  can  for  this  final 
trial,  and  I  will  devote  all  my  energies  to 
assisting  and  finishing  the  war.' ' 

One  of  his  hearers  said,  "  And  the  gen- 
eral would  answer  you,  *  Yes,  Yes ' ;  and 
the  next  day  when  you  saw  him  again,  and 
312 


pa 

3 
O. 


n  | 

U 

CO        ~ 


D. 

s:  s: 


X        £ 

D-    3' 


8  B- 

b  n> 

c  ^ 

a  a 


2.  2. 

fy       r-h 

o     a 

13 


AUGUST    TWENTY-THIRD 

pressed  those  views  upon  him,  he  would 
say,  '  Yes,  Yes,'  and  so  on  forever,  and 
would  have  done  nothing  at  all." 

"At  least,"  said  the  President,  "I 
should  have  done  my  duty  and  have  stood 
clear  before  my  own  conscience." 

Just  when  one  feels  that  one  has  Lin- 
coln's traits  classified  —  that  he  was  a  very 
kind  man  with  a  keenly  logical  mind  and 
a  buoyant  disposition  —  a  man  with  ideals 
but  no  illusions,  who  saw  things  without 
glamor,  and  patiently  looked  ahead  to 
plan  and  combine  them  to  his  will,  one 
comes  upon  some  such  contradiction  as 
this. 

Why  did  he  write  such  a  paper  as  this 
memorandum  of  August  23,  1864?  And, 
having  written  it,  why  did  he  paste  it  to- 
gether and  get  his  cabinet  to  write  their 
names  across  the  back,  ignorant  of  its  con- 
tents? 

What  hidden  comfort  did  he  expect  to 
derive  from  this  —  or  what  possible  use 
313 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

could  he  have  made  of  it  if  the  nightmare 
of  his  defeat  had  come  true?  He  was  sure 
of  his  own  steadfastness,  sure  of  the  loy- 
alty of  his  cabinet.  Why  resort  to  this 
unpractical  but  most  characteristic  act? 

Was  it  that  while  he  had  the  courage  to 
stand  alone  —  to  bear  his  burden  silently 
without  adding  to  the  gloom  and  discour- 
agement of  even  his  closest  advisers  — 
he  wrote  this  and  got  them  to  set  their 
names  upon  it  as  a  sort  of  silent  wit- 
ness of  his  secret  pledge  —  that  though  he 
meant  to  go  down  in  defeat,  if  he  must, 
"  like  the  Cumberland,  with  colors  flying," 
he  craved  for  himself  the  sympathy  he  gave 
in  such  unstinted  measure  to  others? 


314 


XV 

HIS    FORGIVING    SPIRIT 

ON  the  day  of  Lincoln's  second  elec- 
tion the  White  House  was  still  and 
deserted.  "  Everybody  in  Washington, 
and  not  at  home  voting,  seems  ashamed  of 
it,  and  stays  away  from  the  President," 
John  Hay  wrote.  Sitting  in  this  un- 
wonted leisure,  Lincoln's  deep-set  eyes 
looked  back  over  the  thirty-two  years  of 
his  political  life.  After  a  time  he  said: 
"  It  is  a  little  singular  that  I,  who  am  not 
a  vindictive  man,  should  have  always  been 
before  the  people  for  election  in  canvasses 
marked  for  their  bitterness.  Always  but 
once.  When  I  came  to  Congress  it  was  a 
quiet  time.  ..." 

315 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

At  the  end  of  the  vista  he  saw  a  lank,  un- 
known youth  of  twenty-three,  carefully 
signing  his  name  to  his  first  public  paper, 
an  "  Address  to  the  Voters  of  Sangamon 
County,"  which  was  a  territory  larger 
than  the  State  of  Rhode  Island,  and  as  far 
removed  from  the  center  of  political  life  as 
the  equator  is  from  the  pole.  The  friend 
to  whom  he  spoke  saw  a  gaunt?  care-worn 
figure,  aging  before  his  time,  whose  sad 
benignant  face  was  known  to  the  world's 
end;  and  whose  name,  written  with  equal 
care  at  the  foot  of  a  state  paper  not  long 
before,  had  set  four  million  people  free. 
These  thirty-two  years  had  covered  a 
period  of  material  development  as  great  as 
that  of  any  century  preceding  it,  and  keep- 
ing pace  with  this,  the  political  activities  in 
which  he  had  taken  part  had  ranged  from 
the  purely  local  needs  of  a  frontier  com- 
munity to  the  .moral  problems  which  have 
shaken  empires  and  made  martyrs  since  the 
world  began. 

316 


HIS    FORGIVING    SPIRIT 

That  he  passed  through  these  without 
engendering  spite  in  himself  or  enmity  in 
his  opponents  shows  that  he  was  indeed 
"  not  a  vindictive  man."  There  was  a 
Quaker  strain  in  his  blood.  His  father  had 
been  called  lazy.  If  Lincoln  inherited  any 
of  this  trait  it  was  transmuted  both  by 
his  Quaker  blood  and  by  the  kindness  in 
his  heart  into  a  laziness  about  making 
quarrels.  That  night  of  his  .second  elec- 
tion the  group  gathered  in  the  War  De- 
partment, jubilant  over  the  returns,  yet 
found  time  to  say  hard  things  about  cer- 
tain public  men  who  had  been  hostile  to  the 
President.  "  You  have  more  of  that  feel- 
ing of  personal  resentment  than  I  have," 
Lincoln  said  in  surprise.  "  Perhaps  I  have 
too  little  of  it ;  but  I  never  thought  it  paid. 
A  man  has  not  the  time  to  spend  half  his 
life  in  quarrels.  If  any  man  ceases  to  at- 
tack me,  I  never  remember  the  past  against 
him." 

Which  is  perhaps  the  reason  why,  ac- 
317 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

cording  to  the  daily  press,  "  intimate 
friends  "  of  the  great  President  have  been 
dying  with  alarming  frequency  for  forty 
years.  He  was  so  kindly  that  people  felt 
"  intimate "  with  him  on  very  slight  ac- 
quaintance. 

That  friends  were  a  better  political  and 
worldly  asset  than  enemies,  a  logic  less  keen 
than  his  could  easily  prove;  yet  it  is  safe 
to  say  that  it  was  his  heart  rather  than  his 
head  which  made  him  strive,  all  his  life 
long,  to  turn  enemies  into  friends. 

He  did  not  like  strife.  In  his  merchant 
days  he  preserved  the  decencies  of  his  shop 
by  knocking  down  a  ruffian  who  insisted  on 
swearing  in  the  presence  of  women,  and  he 
emphasized  the  lesson  by  rubbing  a  plenti- 
ful supply  of  dog-fennel  into  his  cheeks, 
but  when  the  man  howled  for  mercy  Lin- 
coln brought  water  to  bathe  his  smarting 
face. 

With  the  exception  of  his  one  duel  he 
was  never  engaged  in  a  political  quarrel. 
318 


HIS    FORGIVING    SPIRIT 

In  1840  a  man  named  Anderson  with  whom 
he  was  contesting  a  seat  in  the  legislature 
sent  him  a  note  bristling  with  belligerent 
possibilities.  Lincoln's  answer  ended  the 
matter,  though  it  was  more  of  an  apology 
to  himself  than  to  his  correspondent. 

In  the  difficulty  between  us  of  which  you 
speak  you  say  you  think  I  was  the  aggressor. 
I  do  not  think  I  was.  You  say  my  "  words 
imported  insult."  I  meant  them  as  a  fair  set- 
off  to  your  own  statements  and  not  otherwise ; 
and  in  that  light  alone  I  now  wish  you  to 
understand  them.  You  ask  for  my  "  present 
feelings  on  the  subject."  I  entertain  no  un- 
kind feelings  to  you,  and  none  of  any  sort 
upon  the  subject,  except  a  sincere  regret  that 
I  permitted  myself  to  get  into  such  an  alterca- 
tion. 

In  maturer  life  his  attitude  was  ever  the 
same.  While  he  was  President  it  became 
his  official  duty  to  reprimand  a  young  of- 
ficer court-martialed  for  quarreling.  No 
gentler  rebuke  was  ever  administered. 
319 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

The  advice  of  a  father  to  his  son,  "  Be- 
ware of  entrance  to  a  quarrel,  but  being  in, 
bear  it  that  the  opposed  may  beware  of  thee," 
is  good,  but  not  the  best.  Quarrel  not  at  all. 
No  man,  resolved  to  make  the  most  of  him- 
self, can  spare  the  time  for  personal  conten- 
tion. Still  less  can  he  afford  to  take  all  the 
consequences,  including  the  vitiating  of  his 
temper,  and  the  loss  of  self-control.  Yield 
larger  things  to  which  you  can  show  no  more 
than  equal  right ;  and  yield  lesser  ones  though 
clearly  your  own.  Better  give  your  path  to 
a  dog  than  be  bitten  by  him  in  contesting  for 
the  right.  Even  killing  the  dog  would  not 
cure  the  bite. 

The  sweet  reasonableness  of  turning  the 
other  cheek  is  not  often  urged. 

His  sense  of  humor,  and  his  failure  to 
take  himself  too  seriously,  gave  him  all  the 
more  time  and  strength  for  things  which 
really  mattered,  but  led  his  friends  at  times 
into  questionable  liberties  of  speech.  Gen- 
eral John  M.  Palmer  once  said  to  him, 

320 


HIS    FORGIVING    SPIRIT 

"  Well,  Mr.  Lincoln,  if  anybody  had  told 
me  that  in  a  great  crisis  like  this,  the  peo- 
ple were  going  out  to  a  little  one-horse  town 
and  pick  out  a  one-horse  lawyer  for  Presi- 
dent, I  would  not  have  believed  it." 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
barber  at  the  time.  He  whirled  about  in 
his  chair,  sweeping  the  man  out  of  the  way 
with  his  long  arm.  General  Palmer  sud- 
denly realized  the  enormity  of  his  blunder. 
But  the  President  was  not  angry.  Placing 
his  hand  on  the  general's  knee  he  answered 
very  earnestly,  "  Neither  would  I." 

There  is  an  illuminating  entry  in  John 

Hay's  diary.  "  B and  the  President 

continue  to  be  on  very  good  terms  in  spite 
of  the  publication  of  B.'s  letter.  .  .  .  B. 
came  to  explain  it  to  the  President,  but  he 
told  him  he  was  too  busy  to  quarrel  with 
him.  If  he  (B.)  did  n't  show  him  the  let- 
ter he  probably  would  never  see  it." 

Although  he  would  not  go  half  way  to- 
ward a  quarrel  he  would  take  a  deal  of 
21  321 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

pains  to  correct  a  misunderstanding.  He 
relied  much  on  a  full  and  frank  interchange 
of  ideas.  He  once  wrote  to  Thurlow 
Weed: 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  I  have  been  brought  to  fear 
recently  that  somehow  by  commission  or 
omission,  I  have  caused  you  some  degree  of 
pain.  I  have  never  entertained  an  unkind 
feeling  or  a  disparaging  thought  toward  you, 
and  if  I  have  said  or  done  anything  which 
has  been  construed  into  such  unkindness  or 
disparagement,  it  has  been  misconstrued.  I 
am  sure  if  we  could  meet  we  would  not  part 
with  any  unpleasant  impression  on  either 
side. 

Carl  Schurz  sent  him  a  letter  of  criticism 
which  he  felt  to  be  unjust,  and  to  which  he 
sent  a  long  and,  for  him,  unusually  caustic 
reply.  Mr.  Schurz  in  his  "  Autobiogra- 
phy "  tells  the  sequel : 

Two   or   three   days   after   Mr.    Lincoln's 
letter   had  reached  me   a   special   messenger 
322 


HIS    FORGIVING    SPIRIT 

from  him  brought  me  another  communica- 
tion from  him,  a  short  note  in  his  own  hand, 
asking  me  to  come  to  see  him  as  soon  as  my 
duties  would  permit.  He  wished  me,  if  pos- 
sible, to  call  early  in  the  morning  before  the 
usual  crowd  of  visitors  arrived.  .  .  .  The 
next  morning  at  seven  I  reported  myself  at 
the  White  House.  I  was  promptly  shown 
into  the  little  room  upstairs  which  was  at 
that  time  used  for  cabinet  meetings  —  the 
room  with  the  Jackson  portrait  above  the 
mantelpiece  —  and  found  Mr.  Lincoln  seated 
in  an  arm-chair  before  the  open  grate  fire, 
his  feet  in  gigantic  morocco  slippers.  He 
greeted  me  cordially  as  of  old,  and  bade  me 
pull  up  a  chair  and  sit  down  by  his  side. 
Then  he  brought  his  large  hand,  with  a  slap, 
down  on  my  knee,  and  said  with  a  smile: 
"  Now  tell  me,  young  man,  whether  you 
really  think  that  I  am  as  poor  a  fellow  as 
you  have  made  me  out  in  your  letter  ?  " 

I  must  confess  this  reception  disconcerted 
me.     I  looked  into  his  face  and  felt  some- 
thing like  a  big  lump  in  my  throat.     After  a 
while  I  gathered  up  my  wits,  and  after  a  word 
323 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

of  sorrow  if  I  had  written  anything  that 
could  have  pained  him,  I  explained  to  him 
my  impressions  of  the  situation  and  my  rea- 
sons for  writing  him  as  I  had  done.  He 
listened  with  silent  attention,  and  when  I 
stopped  said  very  seriously,  "  Well,  I  know 
that  you  are  a  warm  antislavery  man,  and  a 
good  friend  to  me.  Now  let  me  tell  you  all 
about  it."  Then  he  unfolded  in  his  peculiar 
way  his  views  of  the  then  existing  state  of 
affairs,  his  hopes  and  apprehensions,  his 
troubles  and  his  embarrassments,  making 
many  quaint  remarks  about  men  and  things. 
I  regret  I  cannot  remember  all.  Then  he 
described  how  the  criticisms  coming  down 
upon  all  sides  chafed  him,  and  how  my  letter, 
although  containing  some  points  that  were 
well  founded  and  useful,  had  touched  him  as 
a  terse  summing-up  of  all  the  principal 
criticisms,  and  offered  him  a  good  chance  at 
me  for  a  reply.  Then,  slapping  my  knee 
again,  he  broke  out  in  a  loud  laugh  and  ex- 
claimed — 

"  Did  n't  I  give  it  to  you  hard  in  my  letter? 
Did'n't  I?     But  it  didn't  hurt,  did  it?     I 
324 


HIS    FORGIVING   SPIRIT 

did  not  mean  to,  and  therefore  I  wanted  you 
to  come  so  quickly."  . 

He  laughed  again  and  seemed  to  enjoy  the 
matter  heartily.  "  Well,"  he  added,  "  I  guess 
we  understand  one  another  now,  and  it 's  all 
right." 

When  after  a  conversation  of  more  than 
an  hour,  I  left  him,  I  asked  whether  he  still 
wished  that  I  should  write  to  him. 

"  Why  certainly,"  he  answered.  "  Write 
to  me  whenever  the  spirit  moves  you." 

We  parted  better  friends  than  ever. 

More  than  once  he  wrote  such  letters, 
and  then  refrained  from  sending  them. 
One  of  these  was  to  General  Meade  after 
Lee's  escape  from  Pennsylvania.  Another, 
which  was  sent,  bears  an  endorsement  in 
his  own  hand. 

"  Withdrawn  because  considered  harsh 
by  General  Halleck." 

Still  another,  which  came  to  light  many 
years  after  the  war,  bore  on  its  envelope  in 
the  handwriting  of  General  Hunter,  "  The 
325 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

President's  reply  to  my  *  ugly  letter.' 
This  lay  on  his  table  a  month  after  it  was 
written,  and  when  finally  sent  was  by  a 
special  conveyance,  with  the  direction  that 
it  was  only  to  be  given  me  when  I  was  in 
a  good  humor." 

While  not  insensible  to  personal  criti- 
cism, he  was  far  too  even-tempered  to  be 
unduly  influenced  by  it.  He  knew  that 
much  of  it  was  like  the  Irishman's  descrip- 
tion of  a  tree-toad  in  one  of  his  stories, 
"  Nothin'  afther  all  but  a  blame  noise !  " 
while  some  of  the  rest  could  be  excused  for 
the  reason  given  in  another  of  his  stories 
by  the  henpecked  man  for  standing  his 
wife's  abuse,  "  It  does  n't  hurt  me  any,  and 
you  've  no  idea  what  a  power  of  good  it 
does  to  Sarah  Ann." 

He  was  broad-minded  enough  to  remem- 
ber that  a  man's  opinion  of  him,  or  of  his 
administration,  might  not  impair  his  use- 
fulness as  a  public  servant.  It  seemed  a 
326 


HIS    FORGIVING    SPIRIT 

poor  rule  that  would  not  work  both  ways. 
He  knew  he  would  be  censured,  and  rightly, 
for  appointing  a  man  to  office  simply  be- 
cause he  praised  him.  It  seemed  equally 
illogical  to  refuse  to  appoint  men  simply 
because  they  blamed  him.  When  he  was 
remonstrated  with  for  giving  an  office  to  one 
who  had  zealously  opposed  his  reelection, 
he  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  That  would 
not  make  him  less  fit  for  the  place.  And  I 
think  I  have  Scriptural  authority  for  ap- 
pointing him.  You  remember,  when  the 
Lord  was  on  Mt.  Sinai  getting  out  a  com- 
mission for  Aaron,  that  same  Aaron  was  at 
the  foot  of  the  mountain,  making  a  false 
god  for  the  people  to  worship.  Yet  Aaron 
got  his  commission." 

His  sense  of  fairness,  and  absolute  free- 
dom from  personal  resentment  were  no- 
where more  forcibly  exhibited  than  in  his 
relations  with  his  generals.  But  clear 
reading  of  character  went  hand  in  hand 
327 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

with  forbearance.  His  letter  to  General 
Joseph  Hooker  on  placing  him  in  command 
shows  how  completely  this  was  so. 

I  have  placed  you  at  the  head  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac.  Of  course  I  have  done  this 
upon  what  appear  to  me  to  be  sufficient  rea- 
sons, and  yet  I  think  it  best  for  you  to  know 
that  there  are  some  things  in  regard  to  which 
I  am  not  quite  satisfied  with  you.  I  believe 
you  to  be  a  brave  and  skilful  soldier,  which, 
of  course,  I  like.  I  also  believe  you  do  not 
mix  politics  with  your  profession,  in  which 
you  are  right.  You  have  confidence  in  your- 
self, which  is  a  valuable,  if  not  an  indis- 
pensable quality.  You  are  ambitious,  which, 
within  reasonable  bounds,  does  good  rather 
than  harm;  but  I  think  that  during  General 
Burnside's  command  of  the  army  you  have 
taken  counsel  of  your  ambition  and  thwarted 
him  as  much  as  you  could,  in  which  you  did 
a  great  wrong  to  the  country,  and  to  a  most 
meritorious  and  honorable  brother  officer.  I 
have  heard,  in  such  a  way  as  to  believe  it, 
of  your  recently  saying  that  both  the  army 
328 


HIS    FORGIVING    SPIRIT 

and  the  Government  needed  a  dictator.  Of 
course  it  was  not  for  this,  but  in  spite  of  it, 
that  I  have  given  you  the  command.  Only 
those  generals  who  gain  successes  can  set  up 
dictators.  What  I  now  ask  of  you  is  military 
success,  and  I  will  risk  the  dictatorship. 
The  Government  will  support  you  to  the  ut- 
most of  its  ability,  which  is  neither  more  nor 
less  than  it  has  done  and  will  do  for  all  com- 
manders. I  much  fear  that  the  spirit  which 
you  have  aided  to  infuse  into  the  army,  of 
criticizing  their  commander  and  withholding 
confidence  from  him,  will  now  turn  upon  you. 
I  shall  assist  you  as  far  as  I  can  to  put  it 
down.  Neither  you  nor  Napoleon,  if  he  were 
alive  again,  could  get  any  good  out  of  an 
army  while  such  a  spirit  prevails  in  it;  and 
now,  beware  of  rashness.  Beware  of  rash- 
ness, but  with  energy  and  sleepless  vigilance 
go  forward  and  give  us  victories. 

When    Grant's   critics  brought   up   old 

gossip   of   his    drunkenness,   he    answered 

with  the  jest  which  has  been   quoted  as 

proof  of  his  abandoned  character,  that  he 

329 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

would  be  glad  to  know  the  brand  of  whisky 
he  used;  or  with  another  variant  of  this 
same  idea,  quoted  in  Admiral  Dahlgren's 
diary  —  the  reply  of  George  III  to  the 
charge  that  one  of  his  generals  was  quite 
mad.  "  If  that  were  true,  he  wished  he 
would  bite  all  his  other  generals." 

One  of  Lincoln's  secretaries,  discussing 
the  various  generals,  remarked  that  there 
was  only  one  to  whom  power  would  be 
really  dangerous.  McClellan  was  too 
timid,  Grant  too  sound  and  cool-headed  to 
usurp  authority,  and  so  on.  "  Yes,"  said 
the  President,  referring  to  still  another 
who  had  been  mentioned.  "  He  is  like  Jim 
Jett's  brother.  Jim  used  to  say  that  his 
brother  was  the  d — dst  scoundrel  that  ever 
lived;  but  that  'in  the  infinite  mercy  of 
Providence,  he  was  also  the  d — dst  fool." 

With  McClellan  the  President's  personal 

relations  were  typical.     At  first  the  general 

had    been    overwhelmed   by    his    new    and 

strange  position,  "  President,  General  Scott 

330 


HIS    FORGIVING    SPIRIT 

and  all  deferring  to  me,"  but  in  contem- 
plating his  own  great  responsibility  he 
quickly  forgot  this,  and  even  the  rights 
and  courtesies  due  to  others.  The  Presi- 
dent, as  was  his  custom,  went  freely  to  his 
house,  by  day  or  night.  One  evening  a 
long  and  awkward  youth,  introduced  as 
"  Captain  Orleans,"  just  come  to  serve  on 
McClellan's  staff,  went  to  announce  his  ar- 
rival. "  One  does  n't  like  to  make  a  mes- 
senger of  the  king  of  France,  as  that  youth, 
the  Count  of  Paris,  would  be,  if  his  family 
had  kept  the  throne,"  Lincoln  said  quietly, 
as  he  watched  him  mount  the  stairs. 

But  to  McClellan  the  President's  sim- 
plicity of  manner  seemed  to  indicate  in- 
competence. Contemptuous  mention  of 
him  and  his  cabinet  in  private  letters 
passed  to  marks  of  open  disrespect,  which 
reached  their  climax  one  night  when  Mr. 
Lincoln,  accompanied  by  Mr.  Seward  and 
a  secretary,  went  to  the  general's  house. 
Being  told  that  he  was  at  a  wedding,  they 
331 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

waited  an  hour  for  his  return.  They  heard 
the  servant  at  the  door  tell  him  that  they 
were  there,  but  the  General  paid  scant  heed, 
and  passing  the  door  of  the  room  in  which 
they  sat,  went  on  upstairs.  After  another 
half  hour  they  sent  to  remind  him  that  they 
were  still  waiting.  Word  came  back  that 
he  had  gone  to  bed. 

No  comment  was  made  as  the  three 
walked  away,  but  after  Secretary  Seward 
had  been  left  at  his  own  door  the  anger  of 
the  younger  man  blazed  forth  at  this  "un- 
paralleled insolence  of  epaulettes."  The 
President  "  seemed  not  to  have  noticed  it 
specially,  saying  it  was  better  at  this  time 
not  to  be  making  points  of  etiquette  and 
personal  dignity."  But  we  are  told  that  he 
stopped  going  to  McClellan's  house,  send- 
ing for  the  General  to  come  to  him  when  he 
desired  to  see  him. 

It  was  harder  for  a  man  of  Lincoln's 
temperament  to  forgive  a  wrong  to  his 
country  than  to  himself ;  yet  after  McClel- 
332 


HIS    FORGIVING    SPIRIT 

lan's  dismal  failure,  after  his  wildly  insub- 
ordinate letter  charging  the  President  and 
the  administration  with  doing  their  utmost 
to  sacrifice  his  army ;  and  after  his  direct 
suggestion  that  General  Pope,  who  was  in 
peril  through  McClellan's  own  fault,  be  left 
to  "  get  out  of  his  scrape  as  best  he  might," 
Lincoln  crowded  back  all  resentment  public 
and  private,  and  over  the  protest  of  his 
cabinet,  placed  him  in  command  of  the  de- 
fenses of  Washington,  because  he  was  con- 
vinced that  "  if  he  cannot  fight  himself  he 
excels  in  making  others  ready  to  fight." 

"  We  must  use  the  tools  we  have,"  he 
used  to  say.  And  his  whole  attitude  was 
summed  up  in  his  announcement,  "  I  shall 
do  nothing  in  malice.  What  I  deal  with  is 
too  vast  for  malicious  dealing." 

He  understood  McClellan,  both  his  good 
qualities  and  his  defects.  When  he  gave 
Grant  his  commission  as  Lieutenant-Gen- 
eral,  the  two  had  a  little  talk,  and  he  spoke 
a  parable,  telling  of  a  war  among  the  ani- 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

raals,  when  Jocco,  the  monkey,  was  sure  he 
could  command  the  army  if  only  his  tail 
were  a  little  longer.  So  they  spliced  a 
piece  on,  and  Jocco  looked  at  it  admiringly, 
and  said  he  thought  he  would  like  a  little 
more.  And  they  gave  it,  and  he  called  for 
more,  until  the  room  was  full  of  tail. 
Then,  there  being  no  place  elsewhere,  they 
began  coiling  it  about  his  shoulders,  until 
the  sheer  weight  of  it  broke  him  down. 

Even  when  his  sorrow  and  resentment 
were  keenest  he  did  not  fail  to  give  credit 
for  the  good  which  had  been  done.  Lee's 
escape  after  Gettysburg  grieved  him 
sorely.  He  said  to  his  son,  "  If  I  had 
gone  up  there  I  could  have  whipped  them 
myself."  He  felt  that  at  that  moment  the 
Union  army  held  the  war  in  the  hollow  of 
its  hand  —  and  would  not  close  it. 
"  Still,"  he  added  generously,  "  I  am  very, 
very  grateful  to  Meade  for  the  great  serv- 
ice he  did  at  Gettysburg." 

.When  the  Chief  Justiceship,  the  highest 
334 


HIS    FORGIVING    SPIRIT 

office  in  a  President's  gift,  fell  vacant,  he 
gave  it  to  Chase,  though  no  one  had  worked 
harder  to  supplant  Lincoln  in  the  Presi- 
dency. The  wonder  and  splendor  of  the 
act  fairly  dazzled  the  secretary  who  carried 
the  nomination  to  the  Senate. 

"  Congress  met  Monday,"  he  wrote, 
"  but  the  President  did  not  get  the  mes- 
sage ready  until  Tuesday  when  it  was  sent 
in.  At  the  same  time  he  sent  in  the  nom- 
ination of  Chase  for  Chief  Justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court.  Probably  no  other  man 
than  Lincoln  would  have  had,  in  this  age 
of  the  world,  the  degree  of  magnanimity  to 
thus  forgive  and  exalt  a  rival  who  had  so 
deeply  and  unjustifiably  intrigued  against 
him.  It  is,  however,  only  another  marked 
illustration  of  the  greatness  of  the  Presi- 
dent in  this  age  of  little  men." 

But  his  quiet  appreciation  of  Chase's  po- 
sition had  been  very  keen.  During  the  in- 
terval between  his  resignation  from  the  cab- 
inet, and  his  appointment  as  Chief  Justice, 
335 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Mr.  Lincoln's  secretary  one  day  brought 

his  chief  a  letter  from  Mr.  Chase  who  was 

in  Ohio. 

"What    is    it    about?"    the    President 

asked. 

"  Simply  a  kind  and  friendly  letter." 
Without  reading  it,  Mr.  Lincoln  said, 

"  File  it  with  his  other  recommendations." 


336 


XVI 

HIS   KEASON   AND   HIS   HEAET 

THOUGH  Lincoln's  place  in  history 
rests  on  the  fact  that  he  freed  the 
slaves,  his  place  in  the  hearts  of  men  rests 
on  something  entirely  different  —  the  way 
in  which  he  did  it.  A  fanatic,  or  a  tyrant 
might  have  signed  a  proclamation  of  eman- 
cipation ;  but  only  a  man  of  clear  vision  and 
surpassing  goodness  could  have  moved 
through  years  of  bloodshed  to  a  culmina- 
ting act  which  destroyed  millions  of  his 
countrymen's  property  at  a  stroke  of  the 
pen,  and  yet  kept  an  ever  warmer  place  in 
their  affections. 

His  two  qualities  of  head  and  heart  acted 
like    counterweights.     His    logic,    though 
22  337 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

unsparing,  was  never  hopeless,  being 
warmed  by  the  goodness  of  his  heart.  He 
believed  that  right  would  ultimately  tri- 
umph, and  this  gave  him  patience  to  move 
slowly,  to  bear  apparent  defeat,  and  to 
wait  the  appointed  time  of  the  Lord.  His 
faith  in  a  mysterious  overruling  Provi- 
dence was  too  sincere  and  too  humble  to 
permit  his  attempting  to  force  either  right- 
eousness or  justice  on  an  unready  world. 

Personal  observation  and  experience  had 
very  little  to  do  in  forming  his  convictions 
on  slavery.  Though  born  in  a  slave  State 
he  left  it  when  a  mere  child,  and  he  had 
only  passing  glimpses  of  slavery's  lights 
and  shadows  during  his  two  flatboat  voy- 
ages to  New  Orleans.  It  was  his  inborn 
sense  of  natural  justice  which  revolted 
against  the  barbarous  selfishness  of  the 
system. 

"  If  slavery  is  not  wrong,  nothing  is 
wrong,"  he  said.  To  the  argument  that 
it  was  a  necessity  forced  upon  the  white 
338 


HIS    REASON    AND    HEART 

man,  he  replied,  "  that  going  many  thou- 
sand miles,  seizing  a  set  of  savages,  bring- 
ing them  here  and  making  slaves  of  them, 
is  a  necessity  imposed  on  us  by  them,  in- 
volves a  species  of  logic  to  which  my  mind 
will  scarcely  assent." 

But  he  recognized  that  the  problem  had 
long  since  passed  that  stage.  In  his 
Peoria  speech,  when  he  stepped  forth  as 
the  champion  of  freedom,  he  frankly  ad- 
mitted that,  "  If  all  earthly  power  were 
given  me  I  should  not  know  what  to  do  as 
to  the  existing  institution.  My  first  im- 
pulse would  be  to  free  all  the  slaves  and 
send  them  to  Liberia,  to  their  own  native 
land.  But  a  moment's  reflection  would 
convince  me  that  whatever  of  high  hope  (  as 
I  think  there  is)  there  may  be  in  this  in  the 
long  run,  its  sudden  execution  is  impossible. 
If  they  were  all  landed  there  in  a  day  they 
would  all  perish  in  the  next  ten  days." 

Every '  actual  observation  deepened  his 
natural  convictions.  Yet  he  did  not  allow 
339 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

his  feelings  to  carry  away  his  reason.  He 
remembered  that  the  practice  was  rooted  in 
custom,  and  entrenched  in  constitution  and 
law.  To  cut  it  out  would  be  to  endanger 
the  national  life.  Also,  while  his  heartfelt 
compassion  went  out  to  the  slave,  he  had 
broad  charity  for  the  slave-holder,  domi- 
nated by  education,  local  prejudice  and 
property  interests. 

This  enabled  him  at  the  very  beginning 
of  his  career  to  strike  that  key-note  in 
statesmanship  through  which  he  wrought 
one  of  the  world's  great  political  reforms. 
He  had  been  but  two  years  in  the  legisla- 
ture of  Illinois  when  that  body  passed  reso- 
lutions "  highly  disapproving  abolition  so- 
cieties," and  declaring  that  "  the  right  of 
property  in  slaves  is  secured  to  the  slave- 
holding  States  by  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion," the  identical  proposition  in  support 
of  which  the  South  began  civil  war.  Lin- 
coln and  five  others  voted  against  it.  In 
addition,  in  order  not  to  leave  their  senti- 
340 


HIS    REASON    AND    HEART 

mcnts  in  doubt,  he  and  one  other  member 
signed  a  written  protest  and  entered  it  on 
the  journal,  reciting  their  belief  that  the 
institution  of  slavery  was  founded  on  both 
injustice  and  bad  policy,  but  that  Congress 
had  no  power  to  interfere  with  it  in  the 
States,  and  that  while  it  had  power  to  abol- 
ish it  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  it  ought 
only  to  exercise  that  power  at  the  request 
of  the  people  of  the  District. 

Conservative  as  this  seems,  it  required  at 
that  day  a  sturdy  political  courage  to  sign 
such  a  document,  in  face  of  the  violent 
prejudice  against  everything  savoring  of 
"  abolitionism."  It  was  in  that  same  year 
that  a  mob  at  Alton,  Illinois,  shot  to  death 
Elijah  P.  Lovejoy  for  persisting  in  his 
right  to  print  an  anti-slavery  newspaper. 

Twelve  years  afterward,  during  his  term 
in  Congress,  Lincoln  presented  a  bill 
for  compensated  emancipation  —  his  plan 
for  making  the  path  of  righteousness  easier 
to  the  slave-owner,  and  the  path  toward 
341 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

liberty  less  dangerous  for  the  slave.  By  its 
provisions  masters  were  to  receive  money 
value  for  their  property,  and  the  slaves  ade- 
quate guardianship  and  training  for  their 
new  life.  It  could  be  accomplished  only 
with  the  full  consent  of  the  owners,  and  he 
proposed  to  try  it  experimentally  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  a  territory  so  small 
that  its  workings  could  be  easily  watched 
and  any  dangerous  tendencies  noted.  The 
measure  had  the  approval  both  of  the  con- 
servative citizens  of  Washington,  and  of 
the  anti-slavery  leaders  in  Congress ;  but  it 
failed  to  become  a  law,  party  heat  being 
already  too  great  to  admit  of  moderate 
legislation.  He  could  save  neither  sinned 
against  nor  sinners.  In  the  poetic  imagery 
of  the  Second  Inaugural,  it  was  decreed  that 
the  blood  drawn  by  the  lash  must  be  paid 
for  in  blood  drawn  by  the  sword. 

All  Lincoln's  study  of  the  question  dur- 
ing the  years   that  separated  his   Peoria 
speech  from  his  taking  the  oath  of  office  as 
342 


HIS    REASON    AND    HEART 

President  confirmed  him  in  his  early  belief 
that  slavery  was  lawful  in  the  Southern 
States,  and  that  where  this  was  the  case  the 
only  remedy  lay  with  the  people  living  in 
those  States.  All  his  effort  was  directed 
toward  preventing  its  spread  into  Federal 
territory,  where,  he  held,  the  Government 
had  a  right  to  interfere.  When  he  took 
the  oath  as  President  he  assumed  the  of- 
ficial responsibility  of  the  judge,  who  can- 
not allow  his  individual  feelings  to  supplant 
the  mandates  of  the  law. 

Then  came  the  Civil  War.  If  Lincoln 
had  been  only  a  political  theorist,  he  would 
have  taken  this  opportunity  to  declare  that 
by  appealing  to  arms  slavery  had  subjected 
itself  to  the  risks  of  war,  and  would  have 
at  once  launched  against  it  his  subsequent 
decree  of  military  emancipation.  But  his 
education  had  made  him  first  of  all  a  prac- 
tical statesman,  and  practical  statesman- 
ship demanded  the  maintenance  of  the  in- 
tegrity and  power  of  the  Union  first  of  all. 
343 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Rash  reforms  like  that  proposed  by  Fre- 
mont and  antislavery  radicals  would  im- 
peril the  Union,  and  to  permit  the  Union 
to  die  was  to  permit  slavery  to  live.  So, 
champion  of  freedom  though  he  was,  he  an- 
nulled Fremont's  proclamation. 

His  paramount  duty  he  emphasized  in 
his  letter  answering  the  criticisms  of  Hor- 
ace Greeley. 

As  to  the  policy  I  "  seem  to  be  pursuing/' 
as  you  say,  I  have  not  meant  to  leave  any  one 
in  doubt.  I  would  save  the  Union.  I  would 
save  it  the  shortest  way  under  the  Consti- 
tution. ...  If  there  be  those  who  would 
not  save  the  Union  unless  they  could  at 
the  same  time  destroy  slavery,  I  do  not  agree 
with  them.  My  paramount  object  in  this 
struggle  is  to  save  the  Union,  and  not  either 
to  save  or  to  destroy  slavery.  .  .  .  What  I 
do  about  slavery  and  the  colored  race  I  do 
because  I  believe  it  helps  to  save  the  Union, 
and  what  I  forbear  I  forbear  because  I  do 
not  believe  it  would  help  to  save  the  Union. 

344 


HIS    REASON    AND    HEART 

I  shall  do  less  whenever  I  shall  believe  what 
I  am  doing  hurts  the  cause,  and  I  shall  do 
more  whenever  I  shall  believe  doing  more 
will  help  the  cause.  ...  I  have  here  stated 
my  purpose  according  to  my  view  of  official 
duty;  and  I  intend  no  modification  of  my  oft- 
expressed  personal  wish  that  all  men  every- 
where could  be  free. 

He  had  a  broader  aim  than  mere  con- 
quest of  the  South.  A  true  restoration  of 
the  Union  must  include  a  renewal  of  fra- 
ternal sympathy  between  the  sections.  In 
this  spirit  he  recommended  and  Congress 
adopted  his  old  policy  of  compensated  abol- 
ishment —  the  offer  of  a  money  equivalent 
to  States  that  would  voluntarily  relinquish 
slavery,  holding  it  to  be  a  remedy  at  once 
more  effectual,  more  humane,  and  far  less 
costly  than  war.  The  offer  was  refused, 
yet  its  spirit  secured  the  adhesion  of  the 
border  States  to  the  Union,  pushing  the  mil- 
itary frontier  down  from  the  Ohio  River  to 
the  Tennessee  line,  and  adding  during  the 
345 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

war  more  than  225,000  volunteers  to  the 
Union  armies. 

The  rejection  of  this  generous  offer,  and 
simultaneous  reverses  to  McClellan's  army 
before  Richmond  brought  about  the  mili- 
tary necessity  which  justified  Lincoln  in 
using  his  authority  as  Commander-in-Chief 
of  the  army  to  issue  his  proclamation  of 
military  emancipation.  Important  as  was 
this  act,  the  signing  of  the  decree  was  only 
an  incident  in  the  battle  he  was  commis- 
sioned to  wage,  and  about  which  he  had 
recorded  his  well-considered  resolve,  "  I  ex- 
pect to  maintain  this  contest  until  success- 
ful, or  till  I  die,  or  am  conquered,  or  my 
term  expires,  or  Congress  or  the  country 
forsake  me."  The  great  issue  was  not  the 
bondage  of  a  race,  but  the  life  of  a  nation, 
a  principle  of  government,  a  question  of 
primary  human  right. 

The  country  accepted  the  edict  of  eman- 
cipation as  wise  and  necessary,  but  whether 
it  would  be  held  valid  in  law,  Lincoln 
346 


HIS    REASON    AND    HEART 

frankly  said  he  did  not  know.  If  the  re- 
bellion should  triumph,  manifestly  the 
proclamation  would  be  so  much  waste  pa- 
per. If  the  Union  were  victorious,  every 
step  of  that  victory  would  be  clothed  with 
the  mantle  of  law.  That  was  the  lesson 
of  all  history;  the  philosophy  of  govern- 
ment. 

Of  one  thing  he  was  sure.  Having  is- 
sued his  proclamation  he  would  never  re- 
tract or  modify  it.  The  freed  slaves  had 
done  their  part.  They  had  been  armed 
and  had  fought  shoulder  to  shoulder  with 
the  whites,  bravely  and  well.  To  restore 
the  Union  with  their  help,  under  a  pledge 
of  liberty,  and  then,  under  whatever  legal 
construction,  to  attempt  to  reenslave  them, 
would  be  a  moral  monstrosity  —  would  be, 
in  the  language  of  one  of  his  early 
speeches,  "  to  repeal  human  nature." 
"  There  have  been  men  base  enough  to  pro- 
pose to  me  to  return  to  slavery  our  black 
warriors  of  Port  Hudson  and  Olustee,"  he 
347 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

said.  "  Should  I  do  so,  I  should  deserve  to 
be  damned  in  time  and  eternity." 

He  wished  the  voluntary  consent  of  the 
States  to  his  act,  and  therefore  set  in  mo- 
tion the  machinery  of  a  constitutional 
amendment.  Lincoln  did  not  live  to  see  it 
a  part  of  the  Constitution,  but  it  became  so 
less  than  a  year  after  his  death. 

These  measures,  taken  in  orderly  se- 
quence, in  strict  pursuance  of  duty,  had 
brought  about  through  his  agency  the  end 
he  desired  and  thought  so  very  far  away. 
His  reason  might  well  have  been  satisfied. 
But  his  heart  was  not  yet  content.  As 
the  war  drew  to  its  close  his  kindness  went 
out  more  and  more  to  these  enemies  who 
were  yet  brothers.  When  he  met  the  Con- 
federate commissioners  at  Hampton  Roads, 
and  through  his  sympathy  and  intuition  di- 
vined their  undercurrent  of  hopelessness, 
he  told  them  that  he  personally  would  favor 
payment  by  the  Federal  Government  of  a 
liberal  indemnity  for  the  loss  of  slave  prop- 
348 


HIS    REASON    AND    HEART 

erty,  on  absolute  cessation  of  the  war,  and 
voluntary  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  South- 
ern States. 

He  spent  the  day  after  his  return  from 
this  meeting  in  perfecting  a  new  proposal 
designed  as  a  peace  offering  to  the  South, 
and  that  evening  called  his  cabinet  to- 
gether and  read  them  the  draft  of  a  joint 
resolution  and  a  proclamation  offering  the 
Southern  States  $400,000,000  on  condition 
that  the  Thirteenth  Amendment  be  ratified 
by  the  requisite  number  of  States  before 
July  first,  1865.  But  this  was  a  height  of 
altruism  to  which  his  constitutional  advis- 
ers could  not  follow  him.  "  You  are  all 
opposed  to  me,"  he  said  sadly,  as  he  folded 
the  paper  and  ended  the  discussion.  But 
he  still  continued  to  ponder  offers  of 
friendship.  In  the  last  public  speech  he 
made,  to  a  crowd  of  people  gathered  in 
front  of  the  Executive  Mansion  to  cele- 
brate Grant's  victory,  he  hinted  at  some 
new  announcement  he  was  considering  and 
349 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

would  soon  make  to  the  South.     Can  it  be 
doubted  it  was  as  generous  as  this  one? 

Such,  in  a  broad  way,  were  Lincoln's 
achievements  and  action  on  slavery.  He 
wrought  in  the  great  field  of  original 
statesmanship,  and  the  Archimedean  lever 
whereby  he  moved  the  world  was  public 
opinion.  Under  his  guidance,  in  the  swift 
rush  of  events,  results  came  to  pass  in  a 
decade  that  had  seemed  like  hopes  a  hun- 
dred years  removed.  For  this  he  took 
to  himself  no  credit.  "  I  claim  not  to  have 
controlled  events,"  he  said,  "  but  frankly 
admit  that  events  have  controlled  me." 
And  again,  "  My  policy  is  to  have  no  pol- 
icy." Keeping  in  view  his  large  ideal  and 
ultimate  aim,  he  disposed  of  each  individual 
problem  as  it  came  up,  though  this  led 
him  into  the  apparent  inconsistency  of  re- 
fusing to  arm  negro  soldiers,  then  of  arm- 
ing them,  of  revoking  military  proclama- 
tions of  emancipation,  then  of  issuing  a 
great  and  sweeping  edict  of  freedom  — 
350 


HIS    REASON    AND    HEART 

once  it  led  him  into  actually  offering  to  buy 
a  slave  for  $500. 

Lincoln's  reply  to  the  minister  who  anx- 
iously "  hoped  the  Lord  was  on  his  side," 
summed  up  his  creed  and  his  practice.  He 
said  that  did  not  trouble  him  in  the  least. 
His  great  concern  was  that  he  and  the 
country  should  be  on  the  side  of  the  Lord. 

Mention  has  been  made  of  Lincoln's 
extreme  reluctance  to  approve  the  death 
penalty.  This  was  not  the  outcome  of 
sentimental  regard  for  soldiers.  In  186& 
a  very  serious  Indian  uprising  with  atro- 
cious massacres  took  place  in  Minnesota. 
After  it  was  quelled  a  court-martial  tried 
the  prisoners,  and  under  the  impulse  of 
popular  indignation  sentenced  about  three 
hundred  to  be  hanged.  Learning  of  this 
the  President  ordered  the  execution  stayed, 
and  the  testimony  forwarded  to  him.  Let- 
ters and  telegrams  poured  in  upon  him, 
begging  him  to  allow  the  sentences  to 
stand ;  but  determined  to  have  no  hasty  sac- 
351 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

rifice,  lie  patiently  investigated  each  case 
for  himself,  finally  confirming  the  sentences 
of  less  than  forty  out  of  the  three  hundred, 
these  being  cases  where  reliable  witnesses 
testified  to  seeing  the  men  actually  en- 
gaged in  acts  of  atrocity.  In  forward- 
ing the  testimony  to  the  Senate  he  stated 
his  anxiety  "  to  not  act  with  so  much  clem- 
ency as  to  encourage  another  outbreak  on 
the  one  hand,  nor  with  so  much  severity  as 
to  be  real  cruelty  on  the  other." 

For  red  and  white  alike  he  stood  firm  in 
his  determination  to  execute  only  the  de- 
crees of  justice. 

"  In  considering  the  policy  to  be 
adopted  for  suppressing  the  insurrection 
I  have  been  anxious  and  careful  that  the 
inevitable  conflict  for  this  purpose  shall 
not  degenerate  into  a  violent  and  remorse- 
less revolutionary  struggle,"  he  told  Con- 
gress in  his  first  annual  message.  Both  his 
reason  and  his  heart  forbade  him  to  sanc- 
tion measures  of  retaliation  urged  for  the 
352 


HIS    REASON    AND    HEART 

massacre  of  negro  soldiers  at  Fort  Pillow. 
Frederick  Douglas,  the  colored  man,  with 
whom  he  talked  on  this  subject,  said,  "  I 
shall  never  forget  the  benignant  expression 
of  his  face,  the  tearful  look  of  his  eye,  and 
the  quiver  of  his  voice."  He  could  not 
take  men  out  and  kill  them  in  cold  blood 
for  what  was  done  by  others.  "  Once  be- 
gun," he  said,  "  I  do  not  know  where  such 
a  measure  would  stop." 

The  same  question  came  up  in  regard 
to  the  treatment  of  prisoners,  and  received 
the  same  answer.  It  was  argued  that  if 
men  were  starved  at  Libby  Prison  and  An- 
dersonville,  the  same  treatment  should  be 
meted  out  to  Confederates.  "  Whatever 
others  may  say  or  do  I  never  can,  and  I 
never  will,  be  accessory  to  such  treatment 
of  human  beings,"  he  said. 

The  question  of  prisoners  lay  heavy  on 
his  heart.  General  Butler  told  of  a  day 
when  the  President  was  visiting  his  com- 
mand. They  had  gone  through  the  hos- 
*3  353 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

pitals,  and  the  wards  of  wounded  Con- 
federate prisoners,  and  he  had  brought 
light  and  cheer  by  his  presence.  After- 
ward as  they  sat  at  dinner  he  was  weary 
and  depressed.  The  General  was  pained 
to  see  that  his  guest  did  not  eat,  and  asked 
if  he  were  ill.  "  I  am  well  enough,"  he  re- 
plied, pushing  away  his  plate,  "  but  would 
to  God  this  dinner  or  provisions  like  it 
were  with  our  poor  prisoners  in  Anderson- 
ville." 

As  the  war  drew  to  its  close  the  ques- 
tions of  exchanging  prisoners,  and  of  the 
treatment  of  Southern  leaders,  assumed 
larger  proportions.  Secretary  Welles, 
who  found  time  to  write  many  things  in 
his  "  deadly  diary,"  moralized  thus : 

This  war  is  extraordinary  in  all  its  aspects 
and  phases,  and  no  man  is  prepared  to  meet 
them.  ...  I  have  often  thought  that  greater 
severity  might  well  be  exercised,  and  yet  it 
would  tend  to  barbarism.  No  traitor  has 
been  hung.  I  doubt  if  there  will  be;  but  an 
354 


HIS    REASON    AND    HEART 

example  should  be  made  of  some  of  the  lead- 
ers, for  present  and  for  future  good.  They 
may,  if  taken,  be  imprisoned,  or  driven  into 
exile,  but  neither  would  be  lasting.  Parties 
would  form  for  their  relief,  and  ultimately 
succeed  in  restoring  the  worst  of  them  to 
their  homes  and  the  privileges  they  originally 
enjoyed.  Death  is  the  proper  penalty  and 
atonement.  .  .  .  But  I  apprehend  there  will 
be  very  gentle  measures  in  closing  up  the 
rebellion. 

He  knew  his  chief.  The  full  difference 
in  their  mental  make-up  is  shown  in  an  en- 
try in  this  same  diary  four  months  later. 
"  Oct.  5, 1864>.  The  President  came  to  see 
me  pretty  early  this  morning  in  relation 
to  the  exchange  of  prisoners.  It  had 
troubled  him  during  the  night." 

Lincoln's  care  was  not  how  to  make  the 
punishment  lasting,  but  how  best  to  heal 
the  scars  of  war.  An  endorsement  on  a 
paper  that  passed  between  him  and  the 
War  Department  shows  his  whole  attitude. 
355 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

"  On  principle  I  dislike  an  oath  which 
requires  a  man  to  swear  he  has  not  done 
wrong.  It  rejects  the  Christian  principle 
of  forgiveness  on  terms  of  repentance.  I 
think  it  is  enough  if  the  man  does  no 
wrong  hereafter." 

He  frankly  admitted  that  he  hoped  the 
leaders  of  the  rebellion  would  escape.  "  If 
you  have  an  elephant  on  your  hands,  and 
he  wants  to  run  away  —  better  let  him 
run !  "  he  said.  And  with  similar  intent 
he' told  the  story  of  a  boy  who,  with  much 
expenditure  of  time  and  energy  had  ac- 
quired a  coon,  only  to  find  him  a  great 
nuisance.  He  could  not,  however,  bring 
himself  to  admit  this  to  his  family.  One 
day,  leading  it  along  the  road,  he  had  more 
than  he  could  do  to  manage  the  little  vixen. 
At  length,  with  clothes  torn,  and  muscles 
weary,  he  sank  to  the  ground,  tired  out. 
A  gentleman  passing,  asked  what  was  the 
matter. 

"  Oh,  this  coon  is  such  a  trouble  to  me." 
356 


HIS    REASON    AND    HEART 

"  Why  don't  you  get  rid  of  him,  then  ?  " 

"Hush,"  said  the  boy.  "Don't  you 
see,  he  is  gnawing  his  rope  off?  That  is 
just  what  I  want.  I  'm  going  to  let  him 
do  it,  and  then  I  can  go  home  and  tell  the 
folks  he  got  away  from  me." 

On  April  11  Lincoln  spoke  from  a  win- 
dow of  the  White  House  to  a  large  and 
joyful  crowd,  gathered  in  honor  of  Lee's 
surrender.  The  President's  speech  was 
full  of  conciliation.  Senator  Harlan  fol- 
lowed, and  in  the  course  of  his  remarks, 
touched  on  the  thought  uppermost  in  ev- 
erybody's mind.  "  What  shall  we  do  -with 
the  rebels  ?  "  he  asked.  A  voice  answered 
from  the  crowd,  "  Hang  them ! " 

Lincoln's  small  son  was  in  the  room, 
playing  with  the  pens  on  the  table.  Look- 
ing up  he  caught  his  father's  pained  ex- 
pression. 

"  No,  no,  Papa,"  he  cried  in  his  child- 
ish voice.  "  Not  hang  them.  Hang  on  to 
them!" 

357 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

"That  is  it!  Tad  has  got  it.  We 
must  hang  on  to  them !  "  the  President  ex- 
claimed in  triumph. 

Lincoln's  final  official  act  was  writing, 
"  Let  it  be  done,"  on  the  petition  of  a  Con- 
federate prisoner  who  desired  to  take  the 
oath  of  allegiance.  "  I  think  this  will  take 
precedence  of  Stanton,"  he  is  reported  to 
have  said,  for  Stanton  wished  to  hedge  re- 
habilitation about  with  more  safeguards. 

In  the  cabinet  meeting  on  that  last 
morning  of  his  life  he  talked  in  a  strain  of 
the  utmost  friendliness  toward  the  South. 
No  one  need  expect  him  to  take  any  part 
in  hanging  these  men,  even  the  worst  of 
them.  Enough  lives  had  been  sacrificed. 
Anger  must  be  put  aside. 

With  words  like  these  on  his  lips,  and  a 
gladness  in  his  heart  which  found  expres- 
sion in  a  physical  embrace  of  his  rough  and 
prickly  friend  Stanton,  he  closed  their  last 
cabinet  session. 

358 


XVII 

LINCOLN    THE   WRITER         -.- 

LINCOLN  knew  no  foreign  tongue, 
yet  he  spoke  two  languages  —  the 
vernacular,  and  a  strong,  majestic  prose, 
akin  to  poetry.  He  used  one  and  then 
the  other,  as  best  suited  his  audience  or  the 
nature  of  his  subject ;  but  whatever  the  lan- 
guage, it  expressed  high  aims,  for  he  had 
only  one  moral  code. 

Growing  up  among  very  simple  people, 
he  acquired  a  plainness  of  manner,  both 
in  thought  and  speech,  which  differ- 
entiated him,  all  his  days,  from  the 
statesmen  nurtured  in  ease  and  plenty. 
The  Boston  Transcript,  commenting  on 
his  first  inaugural,  called  it  "  the  plain 
359 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

homespun  language  of  a  man  of  the  peo- 
ple, who  was  accustomed  to  talk  with  '  the 
folks,'  " — "  the  language  of  a  man  of  vital 
common  sense,  whose  words  exactly  fitted 
his  facts  and  thoughts." 

This  simplicity  shocked  not  a  few.  It 
was  not  living  up  to  the  popular  concep- 
tion of  a  statesman.  The  echoes  wakened 
by  our  great  orators  were  still  rolling  over 
the  land,  and  every  budding  politician  was 
expected  to  rival  them.  A  soaring  perora- 
tion was  deemed  as  essential  to  a  speech  as 
the  "  Fellow  citizens "  with  which  it 
opened.  Lincoln,  with  his  straightfor- 
ward sentences  made  up  of  short  forceful 
words,  was  not  playing  the  game  accord- 
ing to  accepted  rules.  Ex-president  Tyler 
complained  that  he  did  not  even  play  it 
according  to  rules  of  grammar. 

In  his  later  years  Lincoln  used  to  repeat 

with  glee  the  picturesque  description  of  a 

Southwestern    orator   who    "  mounted   the 

rostrum,  threw  back  his  head,  shined  his 

360 


LINCOLN    THE    WRITER 

eyes,  opened  his  mouth,  and  left  the  conse- 
quences to  God."  This  was  an  exercise  of 
faith  in  which  he  never  indulged,  though  he 
passed  through  a  period  of  using  the 
rather  florid  eloquence  of  the  stump  speech 
with  great  effect.  Studies  in  the  law  en- 
courage neither  flights  of  fancy  nor  misuse 
of  words.  His  scrupulous  regard  for 
truth,  and  his  own  good  sense,  speedily 
corrected  any  leaning  toward  extravagant 
metaphor. 

In  one  of  Lincoln's  early  speeches  in 
New  England  he  expressed  a  "  feeling  of 
real  modesty  "  in  addressing  an  audience 
"  this  side  the  mountains,"  where  every- 
body was  supposed  to  be  instructed  and 
wise.  He  had  the  unschooled  man's  wist- 
ful admiration  and  longing  for  educational 
advantages  which  had  been  denied  him; 
and  until  convinced  by  contact  and  much 
experience  with  men  trained  in  the  best 
routine  machines  of  learning,  actually  ex- 
pected to  suffer  by  comparison.  It  is  quite 
361 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

possible  that  up  to  the  very  last  he  was 
astonished,  and  a  bit  disappointed  to  find 
that  he  held  his  own  so  well  beside  them. 

He  had,  too,  the  genuine  admiration 
for  the  arts  and  for  science  common  to 
many  Westerners  whose  taste  and  appre- 
ciation have  outrun  their  opportunities, 
and  he  enjoyed  talking  with  men  of  these 
pursuits  —  looking,  as  it  were,  through 
their  eyes  into  a  world  so  different  from  his 
own.  Professor  Joseph  Henry  was  one 
of  the  rare  men  in  Washington  in  those 
days.  The  two  were  mutually  attracted, 
though  too  busy  to  see  much  of  each  other. 
The  scientist  was  astonished  at  the  Presi- 
dent's intelligent  grasp  of  subjects  about 
which  he  professed  entire  ignorance.  "  He 
is  producing  a  powerful  impressi(*n  upon 
me,"  he  confessed,  "  more  powerful  than 
any  one  I  can  now  recall.  It  increases 
with  every  interview.  I  think  it  my  duty 
to  take  philosophic  views  of  men  and 
things,  but  the  President  upsets  me.  If  I 
362 


LINCOLN    THE    WRITER 

did  not  resist  the  inclination,  I  might  even 
fall  in  love  with  him."  Lincoln  on  his  side 
admitted  that  until  meeting  Professor 
Henry  he  supposed  the  Smithsonian  to  be 
a  rather  useless  institution.  "  But,"  he 
said,  "  it  must  be  a  grand  school  if  it  pro- 
duces such  thinkers  as  he." 

The  President  was  fond  of  music,  in  a 
frank  untutored  way,  though  he  had  not  an 
excruciatingly  sensitive  ear.  The  clash  of 
regimental  bands  playing  against  each 
other,  which  drove  Colonel  Baker  to  dis- 
traction at  a  certain  review,  did  not  dis- 
turb him  in  the  least.  Perhaps  it  is  better 
to  say  that  he  liked  the  idea  of  music  — 
the  sound  and  swing  of  martial  tunes,  and 
the  pathos  of  a  simple  ballad.  He  must 
have  been  unconsciously  sensitive  to 
rhythm,  for  he  read  poetry  uncommonly 
well,  and  his  own  prose  at  its  best  has  a 
movement  as  inevitable  as  that  of  a  march- 
ing column. 

There  is  a  popular  saying  that  only 
363 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

three  books  are  needed  to  complete  a  li- 
brary —  the  Bible,  Blackstone  and  Shak- 
spere.  He  had  delved  deep  in  all  three. 
His  lawyer's  training  is  visible  in  every- 
thing he  wrote,  down  to  the  smallest  scrap, 
in  a  clearness  of  expression  which  leaves 
no  chance  for  misunderstanding  either  the 
fact  stated  or  his  own  motive.  But  it  has, 
too,  that  indefinable  literary  elegance 
called  style.  In  the  sentence  quoted  in  the 
last  chapter,  for  instance,  "  I  expect  to 
maintain  this  contest  until  successful,  or 
till  I  die,  or  am  conquered,  or  my  term  ex- 
pires, or  Congress  or  the  country  forsake 
me,"  no  possible  lawyer-loophole  is  left  un- 
guarded, yet  because  of  its  diction  it  is 
neither  redundant  nor  ungraceful. 

His  familiarity  with  and  use  of  Biblical 
phraseology  was  remarkable  even  in  a  time 
when  such  use  was  more  common  than  now. 
We  are  told  that  he  read  Shakspere  more 
than  all  other  writers  put  together.  When 
only  two  or  three  were  present  he  was  fond 


LINCOLN    THE    WRITER 

of  reading  aloud  from  the  tragedies  or  the 
historical  plays.  John  Hay  tells  us  that 
"  he  passed  many  of  the  summer  evenings 
in  this  way  when  occupying  his  cottage  at 
the  Soldiers'  Home.  .  .  ,  the  plays  he 
most  affected  were  *  Hamlet,'  *  Macbeth,' 
and  the  series  of  histories.  Among  these 
he  never  tired  of  '  Richard  II.'  The  ter- 
rible outburst  of  grief  and  despair  into 
which  Richard  falls  in  the  third  act  had  a 
peculiar  fascination  for  him."  Mr.  Hay 
heard  him  read  it  at  Springfield,  at  the 
White  House,  and  at  the  Soldiers'  Home. 

For  God's  sake,  let  us  sit  upon  the  ground 
And  tell  sad  stories  of  the  death  of  kings :  — 
How  some  have  been  deposed;  some  slain  in 

war; 

Some  haunted  by  the  ghosts  they  have  de- 
posed ; 
Some  poison'd  by  their  wives,  some  sleeping 

kill'd; 

All  murdered:  for  within  the  hollow  crown 
That  rounds  the  mortal  temples  of  a  king 
365 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

Keeps  Death  his  court;  and  there  the  antic 

sits, 

Scoffing  his  stave,  and  grinning  at  his  pomp, 
Allowing  him  a  breath,  a  little  scene, 
To    monarchize,    be    fear'd,    and    kill    with 

looks, 

Infusing  him  with  self  and  vain  conceit, 
As  if  this  flesh,  which  walls  about  our  life, 
Were  brass  impregnable,  and  humor'd  thus 
Comes  at  the  last  and  with  a  little  pin 
Bores  through  the  castle  walls,  and  —  fare- 
well, king! 

He  liked  to  see  these  same  plays  acted. 
Apparently  he  cared  more  for  the  acting 
of  men  than  of  women  —  more  for  Hack- 
ett,  for  instance,  than  for  Charlotte  Cush- 
man.  He  was  so  delighted  with  Hackett's 
Falstaff  that  he  wrote  the  veteran  actor  a 
letter,  which  through  an  indiscretion  on 
the  latter's  part,  was  printed  in  the  New 
York  Herald  with  accompanying  abuse. 
Hackett,  greatly  mortified,  made  profound 
apologies,  to  which  the  President  replied 
366 


LINCOLN    THE    WRITER 

in  the  kindest  manner,  that  though  he  had 
not  expected  to  see  his  note  in  print,  it  had 
not  distressed  him.  "  These  comments 
constitute  a  fair  specimen  of  what  has  oc- 
curred to  me  through  life.  I  have  endured 
a  great  deal  of  ridicule  without  much  mal- 
ice and  have  received  a  great  deal  of  "kind- 
ness not  quite  free  from  ridicule.  I  am 
used  to  it." 

He  told  a  friend  that  he  had  never  read 
a  whole  novel  in  his  life,  though  he  once 
began  "  Ivanhoe."  Occasionally  he  read  a 
scientific  work  with  deep  interest,  but  his 
busy  life  left  him  little  time  for  such  indul- 
gence. During  his  Presidency  the  little 
leisure  that  he  had  for  reading  was  de- 
voted, almost  of  necessity,  to  works  on 
military  science. 

"  The  music  of  Lincoln's  thought  was 
always  in  a  minor  key,"  my  father  wrote. 
Of  modern  poems  the  sad  or  reminiscent 
appealed  to  him  —  like  Holmes's  "  Last 
Leaf,"  Hood's  "Haunted  House,"  and 
367 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

"  Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be 
proud?  " 

Among  his  own  writings  are  found  a 
few  bits  of  verse.  On  the  Day  of  Judg- 
ment few  indeed  will  be  the  public  men 
who  will  not  have  to  face  a  similar  charge. 
Lincoln's  verses  were  inspired  by  revisiting 
his  old  home,  "  within  itself  as  unpoetical 
as  any  spot  on  the  earth,"  he  admitted,  but 
which  "  aroused  feelings  in  me  which  were 
certainly  poetry,  though  whether  my  ex- 
pression of  these  feelings  is  poetry,  is 
quite  another  question." 

Certain  other  fragments  — =  one  on  Ni- 
agara Falls,  notes  for  a  law  lecture,  and  a 
more  extended  paper,  the  skeleton,  partly 
clothed,  of  a  lecture  on  "  Discoveries,  In- 
ventions and  Improvements,"  which  he  de- 
livered a  few  times  in  Springfield "  and 
neighboring  towns  in  1859  and  1860,  are 
all  that  we  have  of  his  efforts  at  self  ex- 
pression on  subjects  other  than  his  con- 
trolling inspiration. 

368 


LINCOLN    THE    WRITER 

One  who  heard  the  lecture  described  it 
as  longer  and  containing  several  fine  pas- 
sages not  in  the  printed  copy.  It  is  easy 
to  see  that  even  as  it  stands,  Lincoln's 
smile  and  manner  would  have  made  another 
thing  of  it.  Even  in  print  there  are  a 
few  bits  wittily  his  own,  like  the  characteri- 
zation of  Young  America  —  "  He  owns  a 
large  part  of  the  world  by  right  of  possess- 
ing it,  and  all  the  rest  by  right  of  wanting 
it  and  intending  to  have  it." 

The  probability  is  that  all  these  were 
composed  within  that  period  of  compara- 
tive leisure  between  the  end  of  his  term  in 
Congress  and  the  day  when  the  repeal  of 
the  Missouri  Compromise  unchained  the 
new  political  controversy.  He  attached 
no  undue  importance  to  them.  Refusing 
an  invitation  to  lecture  in  the  spring  of 
1859,  he  wrote:  "I  cannot  do  so  now.  I 
must  stick  to  the  courts  awhile.  I  read  a 
sort  of  lecture  to  three  different  audiences 
during  the  last  month  and  this,  but  I  did 
2*  369 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

so  under  circumstances  which  made  it  a 
waste  of  no  time  whatever." 

At  what  time  Lincoln  began  the  compo- 
sition of  his  first  inaugural  was  unknown, 
even  to  his  secretary.  My  father's  opin- 
ion was  that  while  he  did  not  set  himself 
seriously  to  this  task  until  the  result  of  the 
election  had  been  ascertained  beyond 
doubt,  it  is  quite  possible  that  it  had  been 
considered  with  great  deliberation  during 
the  summer,  and  that  sentences  and  per- 
haps paragraphs  of  it  had  been  put  in 
writing.  Mr.  Lincoln  often  resorted  to 
the  process  of  cumulative  thought,  and  his 
constant  tendency  to  and  great  success  in 
axiomatic  definition  resulted  in  a  large 
measure  from  a  habit  he  had  of  reducing 
a  forcible  idea  to  writing,  and  keeping  it 
till  further  reasoning  enabled  him  to  elab- 
orate or  conclude  his  point  or  argument. 
There  were  many  of  these  scraps  among 
his  papers  —  seldom  in  the  shape  of  mere 
370 


LINCOLN    THE    WRITER 

rough  notes ;  almost  always  as  a  finished 
proposition  or  statement. 

It  was  about  one  of  his  political  letters, 
the  Conkling  letter  of  August  26,  1863, 
that  John  Hay  wrote  to  my  father  with 
irrepressible  youthful  enthusiasm: 

"  His  last  letter  is  a  great  thing.  Some 
hideously  bad  rhetoric  .  .  .  yet  the  whole 
letter  takes  its  solid  place  in  history  as  the 
great  utterance  of  a  great  man.  The 
whole  cabinet  could  not  have  tinkered  up 
a  letter  which  could  have  compared  with 
it.  He  can  snake  a  sophism  out  of  its 
hole  better  than  all  the  trained  logicians 
of  all  schools.  I  do  not  know  whether  the 
nation  is  worthy  of  him.  .  .  ." 

This  Conkling  letter  has  been  called 
"  his  last  stump  speech."  It  has  in  it  all 
the  qualities  which  made  him  the  leader  of 
his  party  in  Illinois  for  a  generation  — 
the  close  reasoning,  the  innate  perception 
of  political  conduct,  wit,  sarcasm,  and 
371 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

that  picturesque  eloquence  which  abounded 
in  his  earlier  and  more  careless  oratory. 
But  all  are  strengthened  and  intensified 
by  a  sense  of  his  great  responsibility. 
"  The  Father  of  Waters  again  goes  un- 
vexed  to  the  sea,"  "  All  the  watery  mar- 
gins "  of  our  land,  and  "  Man's  vast  fu- 
ture," with  their  poetic  note,  are  balanced 
by  statements  as  irrefutable  as  that  two 
and  two  make  four,  and  his  axiom  that 
"  there  can  be  no  appeal  from  the  ballot 
to  the  bullet " —  Nowhere  a  syllable  that 
could  be  dispensed  with,  nowhere  a  word 
lacking. 

Modest  as  he  was,  Lincoln  knew  the 
value  of  his  work.  When  a  friend  asked 
him  if  he  meant  to  attend  the  mass  meeting 
in  Springfield  to  which  Mr.  Conkling's  let- 
ter was  an  invitation,  he  replied, 

"  No.  I  shall  send  them  a  letter  in- 
stead, and  it  will  be  a  rather  good  letter." 

Although  a  ready  impromptu  speaker, 
he  made  for  himself  a  rule  to  which  he  ad- 
372 


LINCOLN    THE    WRITER 

hered  during  his  Presidency.  This  was  to 
say  nothing  in  public  that  he  had  not  first 
committed  to  writing.  Reprimands  to  de- 
linquent officials,  the  little  speech  on  pre- 
senting Grant  his  commission  as  Lieuten- 
ant General,  and  the  speeches  of  formal 
ceremony  to  diplomats,  as  well  as  the  far 
more  intimate  lecture  to  his  cabinet,  were 
all  carefully  written  beforehand. 

When  he  delivered  the  Gettysburg  Ad- 
dress he  held  the  paper  in  his  hand,  but 
did  not  read  from  it.  It  was  "  in  a  firm 
free  way,  with  more  grace  than  is  his 
wont  "  that  he  "  said  his  half  dozen  lines 
of  consecration."  "  And  the  music  wailed, 
and  we  went  home  through  crowded  and 
cheering  streets  —  and  all  the  particulars 
are  in  the  daily  papers,"  John  Hay  wrote. 
^  Next  day  Edward  Everett  sent  the  Pres- 
ident a  note  of  thanks  for  personal  cour- 
tesies received,  and  of  appreciation  of  the 
address.  "  I  should  be  glad  if  I  could 
flatter  myself  that  I  had  come  as  near  the 
373 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

central  idea  of  the  occasion  in  two  hours 
as  you  did  in  two  minutes." 

Mr.  Lincoln  answered,  "  In  our  respect- 
ive parts  yesterday  you  could  not  have 
been  excused  to  make  a  short  address,  nor 
I  a  long  one.  I  am  pleased  to  know  that 
in  your  judgment,  the  little  I  did  say  was 
not  entirely  a  failure.  Of  course  I  knew 
Mr.  Everett  would  not  fail." 

Much  has  been  written  to  prove  that 
neither  Lincoln  nor  the  country  was  satis- 
fied with  the  address,  and  that  it  was  re- 
served for  English  critics  to  discover  its 
wonderful  beauty.  The  only  direct  evi- 
dence lies  in  this  letter  to  Edward  Everett, 
which  may  or  may  not  conceal  more  mean- 
ing than  a  conventional  answer  to  a  merited 
compliment.  The  probability  is  that 
though  he  thought  the  address  not  nearly 
so  bad  as  some  would  have  us  imagine,  he 
did  not  dream  that  the  world  would  acclaim 
it  a  masterpiece.  He  would  doubtless  have 
been  astonished,  and  the  first  to  protest, 
374 


LINCOLN    THE    WRITER 

had  he  been  told  that  he  was  a  great  writer. 
Yet  the  world  so  holds  him ;  and  surely  in 
elevation  of  thought  and  nobility  of 
expression  it  is  hard  to  find  his  superior. 

Sherman  called  his  style  "  the  unaffected 
and  spontaneous  eloquence  of  the  heart." 
It  was  indeed  an  eloquence  of  the  heart. 
His  early  striving  after  lucid  brevity,  and 
his  dramatic  sense,  gave  him  the  power  of 
expressing  ideas  in  short  and  forceful 
terms.  His  moral  purpose  made  him  a 
teacher  whose  voice  carried  far.  To  this 
he  had  attained  before  he  became  Presi- 
dent. But  it  was  the  experience  of  the 
Presidency  which  brought  to  full  flower 
another  quality,  a  beauty  of  phrase  and  a 
benignity  of  expression  only  hinted  at  in 
his  earlier  writings. 

"  We  shall  nobly  save  or  meanly  lose, 
the  last,  best  hope  of  earth."  "  It  is 
rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the 
great  task  remaining  before  us  —  that 
from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased 
375 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they  gave 
the  last  full  measure  of  devotion."  "  I 
have  not  willingly  planted  a  thorn  in  any 
man's  bosom."  "  We  must  not  sully  vic- 
tory with  harshness."  "  With  malice  to- 
ward none ;  with  charity  for  all ;  with  firm- 
ness in  the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the 
right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we 
are  in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds ;  to 
care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne  the  bat- 
tle, and  for  his  widow,  and  his  orphan  —  to 
do  all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just 
and  lasting  peace  among  ourselves,  and 
with  all  nations." 

Before  his  election  he  might  have  writ- 
ten, "  Fellow  citizens,  we  cannot  escape 
history !  "  But  he  could  not  have  spoken 
the  "  half  dozen  lines  of  consecration  "  at 
Gettysburg,  or  the  marvelous  words  of  the 
Second  Inaugural. 

It  was  his  suffering  —  the  thorny  path 
he  trod,  carrying  a  nation's  grief,  which 
gave  his  words  their  final  majesty. 
376 


XVIII 

HIS   MORAL,  FIBER 

A  FEW  characters  live  in  history  un- 
circumscribed    by    time    or    place. 
They  may  have  died  ten  centuries  or  ten 
days  ago;  we  feel  them  to  be  as  vital  and 
as  modern  as  ourselves. 

It  is  hard  to  think  of  Lincoln  in  any  en- 
vironment except  our  own,  yet  the  country 
he  knew  was  vastly  different.  The  Civil 
War  bridged  a  gulf  wider  than  we  realize. 
Up  to  that  time  America  had  been  the  land 
of  individual  effort,  where  those  who  were 
dissatisfied  could  go  on  into  the  wilder- 
ness and  work  out  their  doom  or  their  sal- 
vation unmolested.  The  very  peopling 
of  the  continent  had  been  a  protest  against 
377 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

despotism  —  against  doing  things  the  way 
some  one  else  decreed.  In  our  early  at- 
tempts at  concerted  government  conces- 
sions toward  central  power  were  given 
grudgingly,  and  sometimes  withdrawn 
again,  in  spite  of  demonstrated  success. 
We  accepted  the  motto,  "  In  union  is 
strength,"  officially ;  in  private  we  pinned 
our  faith  to  its  opposite  — "  every  man 
for  himself." 

By  its  mere  magnitude  the  Civil  War 
compelled  a  change.  The  struggle  as- 
sumed such  vast  proportions  that  Ameri- 
cans were  forced  to  think  in  a  new  way  — 
to  do  things  together  in  large  masses,  to 
contemplate  immense  quantities,  to  calcu- 
late stupendous  sums. 

A  volunteer  army  is  in  essence  coopera- 
tion, and  four  years'  training  in  the  possi- 
bilities of  voluntary  cooperation  taught 
the  nation  the  value  of  "  team  work."  At 
the  end  of  the  struggle  over  a  million  men, 
trained  in  these  new  ways,  carried  their 
378 


HIS    MORAL    FIBER 

knowledge  back  into  civil  life,  and  spread 
it  through  the  business  world.  If  the 
germ  of  secession  lay  hidden  in  the  hold  of 
the  Dutch  slaver  that  sailed  up  the  James 
River  in  1619,  the  inception  of  present  in- 
dustrial methods  was  breathed  in  by  both 
Union  and  Confederate  armies  as  they  lay 
in  the  swamps  of  Virginia. 

Just  enough  poison  may  be  a  tonic, 
though  too  much  is  a  deadly  drug.  In- 
dividualism did  its  great  work  on  this  con- 
tinent, but,  pushed  to  its  conclusion, 
would  have  brought  ruin.  This  new  force 
quickened  the  pulse  of  national  life  so 
that  the  waste  of  war  was  repaired  with 
unheard-of  speed;  and  now  men  wonder 
how  much  farther  it  is  wise  to  pursue  the 
same  course. 

Remembering  the  wisdom  of  Lincoln 
who  presided  over  the  other  great  change, 
people  have  sought  to  make  him  a  prophet 
for  this  generation.  Not  finding  what 
they  wanted  among  his  words,  the  un- 
379 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

scrupulous  have  not  hesitated  to  invent 
them.  My  father  once  made  a  list  of  a 
dozen  or  more  spurious  quotations  and 
allegations  concerning  Lincoln;  but  the 
one  he  was  most  often  called  upon  to  deny, 
was  this: 

Yes,  we  can  all  congratulate  ourselves  that 
this  cruel  war  is  drawing  to  a  close.  It  has 
cost  a  vast  amount  of  treasure  and  blood. 
The  best  blood  of  the  flower  of  American 
youth  has  been  freely  offered  upon  our  coun- 
try's altar  that  the  nation  might  live.  It  has 
been  a  trying  hour  for  the  republic,  but  I 
see  in  the  near  future  a  crisis  arising  which 
unnerves  me  and  causes  me  to  tremble  for  the 
safety  of  my  country.  As  a  result  of  the 
war,  corporations  have  been  enthroned,  and 
an  era  of  corruption  in  high  places  will  fol- 
low, and  the  money  power  of  the  country 
will  endeavor  to  prolong  its  reign  by  working 
upon  the  prejudices  of  the  people  until  all 
wealth  is  aggregated  in  a  few  hands  and  the 
republic  is  destroyed.  I  feel  at  this  time 
more  anxiety  for  the  safety  of  my  country 
380 


HIS    MORAL    FIBER 

than  ever  before,  even  in  the  midst  of  the 
war.  God  grant  that  my  fears  may  prove 
groundless ! 

This  alleged  quotation  seems  to  have 
made  its  first  appearance  in  the  Presiden- 
tial campaign  of  1888,  and  it  has  returned 
with  planetary  regularity  ever  since. 
Although  convinced  by  internal  evidence 
of  its  falsity,  my  father  made  every  effort 
to  trace  it  to  its  source,  but  could  find  no 
responsible  or  respectable  clue.  The  truth 
is  that  Lincoln  was  no  prophet  of  a  distant 
day.  His  heart  and  mind  were  busy  with 
the  problems  of  his  own  time.  The  legacy 
he  left  his  countrymen  was  not  the  warn- 
ing of  a  seer,  but  an  example  and  an  ob- 
ligation to  face  their  own  dark  shadows 
with  the  sanity  and  courageous  inde- 
pendence he  showed  in  looking  upon  those 
that  confronted  him. 

His  early  life  was  essentially  of  the  old 
era.  He  made  his  own  career  by  indi- 

381 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

vidual  effort.  His  childhood,  on  the  edge 
of  civilization,  had  on  the  one  side  the 
freedom  of  the  wilderness,  and  on  the  other 
the  very  few  simple  things  which  have  been 
garnered  as  necessities  from  the  world's 
useless  belongings.  His  lawyer's  earn- 
ings, at  their  highest,  were  only  a  pittance, 
by  modern  estimate;  and  a  hundred  de- 
tails of  his  letters  and  daily  life  —  like 
his  invitation  to  an  audience  in  the  Lin- 
coln-Douglas campaign,  to  meet  him  "  at 
candle-light,"  which  was  not  a  figure  of 
speech  but  an  actual  condition,  showed  how 
completely  he  was  part  of  that  vanished 
time. 

Yet  when  the  change  came  he  led  the 
country  out  of  old  ways  into  new.  Rising 
above  the  hatred  and  bitterness  of  the 
struggle,  he  held  attention  to  the  great  and 
enduring  principles  which  made  such  a 
sacrifice  of  life  not  only  tolerable,  but 
holy.  By  force  of  his  own  personality  he 
shamed  men  into  contempt  for  vindictive- 
382 


HIS    MORAL    FIBER 

ness  and  meanness;  and  doing  so,  robbed 
war  of  its  bitterest  sting. 

His  sudden  elevation  to  the  Presidency 
had  no  deteriorating  effect  upon  his  qual- 
ities of  head  or  of  heart.  His  mental 
equipoise  remained  undisturbed,  his  moral 
sensitiveness  unblunted,  his  simplicity  of 
manner  unchanged,  his  strong  individual- 
ity untouched.  His  responsibilities  served 
only  to  clear  his  judgment,  confirm  his 
courage  and  broaden  and  deepen  his  hu- 
manity. 

Dwellers  on  mountain  tops  are  lonely. 
The  very  clearness  of  his  mind,  and  the 
largeness  of  his  view,  conspired  to  rob  him 
of  companionship  in  the  sense  of  intel- 
lectual equality.  A  vainer  man  might  have 
felt  this.  Lincoln,  entirely  without  ego- 
tism, grasped  the  greater  fact  of  human 
brotherhood,  and  found  interest  and  com- 
panionship in  the  fact  of  a  common  hu- 
manity. 

He  had  no  false  pride  about  little 
383 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

things ;  no  false  modesty  about  great  ones. 
He  knew  that  he  had  a  great  part  to  play, 
and  played  it  simply,  earnestly.  He  had 
no  illusions  but  also,  no  bitterness.  He 
did  have  strong  affections,  a  very  real 
craving  for  sympathy,  a  merry  wit,  and 
an  infinite  capacity  for  pain.  He  was  a 
man  of  patience,  of  faith,  of  broad  princi- 
ples, of  high  aspirations ;  accepting  with- 
out rude  rebuff  any  good  he  could  secure 
for  the  moment,  yet  all  the  while  shaping 
and  preparing  in  meditation  and  silent 
hope  the  path  by  which  the  nation  might 
mount  to  higher  levels. 

This  man  of  no  illusions  lived  very  close 
to  mystery.  From  the  day  he  stood  be- 
side his  father  in  the  unhealthful  shade  of 
Pigeon  Cove,  a  little  heart-sick  boy, 
watching  the  whip-saw  eat  its  way 
through  the  green  wood  that  was  to  make 
coffins  for  his  mother  and  the  others  who 
had  died  of  the  dreadful  "  milk  sick- 
ness," to  the  night  before  he  was  mur- 
384 


HIS    MORAL    FIBER 

dered,  when  he  dreamed  again  his 
recurrent  dream  of  the  strange  ship  hur- 
rying toward  a  dark  and  unknown  shore, 
he  seemed  always  to  feel  the  unseen  very 
near. 

Every  act  of  his  private  life,  and  every 
public  paper  he  sent  forth,  testified  not 
only  to  his  belief  in,  but  to  his  reliance 
upon,  a  power  higher  and  wiser  than  him- 
self. "  The  purposes  of  the  Almighty  are 
perfect  and  must  prevail,"  he  wrote, 
"  though  we  erring  mortals  may  fail  to 
accurately  perceive  them  in  advance.  .  .  . 
We  shall  yet  acknowledge  His  wisdom  and 
our  own  error  therein.  Meanwhile  we 
must  work  earnestly  in  the  best  lights  He 
gives  us,  trusting  that  so  working  still  con- 
duces to  the  great  end  He  ordains." 

In  its  reverence  for  the  words  and  acts 
of  Christ  the  civilized  world  has  set  up  its 
standard  of  moral  philosophy.  Judged 
by  this  standard  Lincoln  must  be 
accorded  preeminence  among  his  contem- 
*s  385 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

poraries.  A  patriot  in  his  complete 
devotion  to  his  Government  and  its  Con- 
stitution, his  greatness  of  soul  rose  above 
patriotism  and  acknowledged  the  right  of 
every  human  being  made  in  God's  image 
to  his  personal  act  of  kindness  and  mercy 
—  not  as  an  act  of  grace  from  a  mighty 
ruler,  as  he  was;  but  as  a  service  com- 
manded alike  by  the  laws  of  man  and  God. 
In  the  practice  of  justice,  of  patriotism, 
of  mercy  —  in  the  utter  oblivion  of  self, 
"  with  malice  toward  none,  with  charity 
for  all,"  he  followed  in  the  footsteps  of 
the  Galilean. 

Fate  placed  him  at  the  cross-roads  of 
national  destiny.  The  muse  of  history 
thrust  before  him  a  blank  tablet  and  bade 
him  write  upon  it  the  life  or  death  of  the 
New  World  republic.  It  is  our  privilege 
to  read  from  that  tablet  the  record  of  a 
Union  preserved,  and  a  new  conception  of 
dominion,  majesty  and  power,  tempered 
by  the  Golden  Rule.  But  at  that  time  no 
386 


HIS    MORAL    FIBER 

mortal,  not  even  he  who  was  to  write,  could 
foretell  the  inscription.  He  himself  did 
not  pretend  to  pierce  the  veil  of  the  future. 
He  only  knew  the  magnitude  of  his  task, 
and  that  he  was  not  dismayed. 


THE   END 


387 


